Re: critical issues

[David Kastrup]

Graham Percival <address@hidden> writes:

> On Tue, Jan 03, 2012 at 01:03:08AM +0100, David Kastrup wrote:
>> Graham Percival <address@hidden> writes:
>> 
>> > We could certainly consider dropping support for OSX or windows.
>> 
>> That sort of token solidarity is actually counterproductive:
>> if you believe that non-releases lead to non-users,
>
> yes
>
>> and you think that
>> non-releases for GNU/Linux may pressure GNU/Linux developers into making
>> OSX/Windows releases,
>
> no
>
>> then how does a non-release for GNU/Linux, with
>> its corresponding result in decreasing GNU/Linux users and GNU/Linux
>> developers, help in recruiting GNU/Linux developers that can be
>> pressured into making OSX and Windows releases?
>
> it doesn't?

Exactly.

> Suppose we announce a big new shiny lilypond 2.16.  For linux and
> freebsd only.  OSX and windows users can go screw themselves.

We are not announcing a big new shiny Lilypond 2.16.  We are announcing
big new shiny 2.15.xx "developer" releases one after another.  For
GNU/Linux and FreeBSD only.  And we are not bothering to stabilize
development into a state where it would even make sense to announce 2.16
for anybody.  Or where the effort to bring GUB into release shape would
appear to be worth the trouble.

OSX and Windows users _are_ second class (or handicapped) citizens for
LilyPond because the whole technology is based on GNU, and since the
developer skills needed to work with it strongly correlate with
UNIX-like systems.  The whole point of GUB is that it is a _cross_
building ennvironment that can be maintained by GNU/Linux developers for
the sake of OSX and Windows users.  The skill level for actively keeping
GUB working (rather than plug and pray) is considerable, and requires
good GNU/Linux (or at least UNIX) skills and at least contact skills
with OSX and Windows.  Without a healthy surplus of GNU/Linux-based
developers that are not already locked down with keeping up their own
projects, our OSX and Windows users can indeed, as you so flowery put
it, can go screw themselves because they can't hope to screw with
LilyPond, rather pure UNIX-based technology requiring UNIX-centric skill
sets and mind frames.

There is a _reason_ the remaining OSX and Windows based developers are
doing (definitely important) documentation and web site work.  They are
to a large degree locked out and dependent on support from surplus
GNU/Linux-based developer capacities.  We are not doing them any favors
by killing LilyPond development as a whole out of sympathy with their
plight.

> - what does this do to our ONLY documentation writers and
>   reviewers (who are all windows-based)?  Will they be a) more
>   motivated to work on lilypond, b) no change, or c) less
>   motivated?

We are already screwing them over with GNU/Linux-only "developer
releases".  When will we stop using our Windows and OSX developers as an
excuse for not working on a stable release that would actually warrant
the effort of getting GUB working again and matched to current Windows
and OSX releases?

> I will admit that the latter point could be construed as "if we
> make it very difficult to contribute to lilypond, then I'm going
> to punish everybody by not having stable releases" -- but almost
> all of those "can't-contribute" bugs can be fixed in an hour or
> two, and is platform-independent (or rather: it only involves
> lilydev, which is ubuntu, most often inside virtualbox, so anybody
> can work on that).

Newsflash: "anybody" needs considerable GNU/Linux skills to work on
that.  And extra time.  Why should he bother when he can just go on
working with "development releases" on GNU/Linux?

I don't see GUB catching up without having a feature freeze, the freeze
associated with starting a stable release cycle.  A freeze that actually
_stops_ the releases labelled as "development" releases in order to hide
the fact that we have stopped actually catering to Windows and OSX users
years ago.  They need actions, not warm wishes and self-flagellation.

-- 
David Kastrup