[rt-devel] Re: [rt-users] Code fork

[Dan Debertin]

Tobias,	
	I have to say that this saddens me quite a bit. I can't claim to
be privy to the ins & outs of your working relationship with Jesse, but I
can tell you this -- RT as it stands in its stable version is dependable,
reasonably full-featured, well-supported, and easy to use &
administer. Why would you want to break that by putting forth a version
that is (as you admit) hacky, not well supported, and a bear to install,
all in the name of getting the product out the door faster? It is thinking
like that which gave us the abominations like Windows 98 and XEmacs ;)

To quote RMS (gratuitously), I would rather use stable, well-thought-out,
"Done-right-the-first-time" GNU tools than the more feature-rich,
bug-full, downright scandalous offerings of those who want to ship their
product ASAP and let the user base debug it for them. Forgive the
comparison, but I think it's called for here.

I know from watching my own cadre of sysadmins and coders that conflict is
a _good_ thing. We've sat and harangued eachother for hours on end over
policy, coding style, direction, and all manner of things. Generally, this
is the atmosphere that is most conducive to bringing out what each person
excels at the most, and funnelling bullshit down to the bottom of the
heap. Very seldom, provided all parties are mature, does it devolve into
poisonousness.

It is endemic to a software project that you will exceed your deadlines.
for the deadline is writing you a check. This is free software! If it's
really important for an RT user to have a feature *right now*, and they
won't let it go, offer to work tirelessly on it provided a small stipend
of some sort. I would rather pay you to hack on RT than pay the huge sums
that I would have to for a commercial product that I know isn't bug-free.

As you said yourself:

> Actually I think neither me nor
> Jesse have what it takes to make the perfect RT2 alone.

If this is true, you should continue to hack on it together. It is my
opinion that software is best produced slowly and deliberately, not by
piling ugly hack upon ugly hack.

But again, I don't know what goes on between you and Jesse. Perhaps there
are irreconcilable differences, and if true, a code fork would make me
quite sad.

~Dan D.
___________________________________________________________________
++ I feel the earth move.
++ I feel the tumbling down, the tumbling down.

Dan Debertin
Senior Systems Administrator
Bitstream Underground, LLC
airboss at bitstream.net