Re: Concerns about GNU Bison maintenance.

[Kaz Kylheku (gnu-misc-discuss)]

On 2020-08-06 13:20, ams@gnu.org wrote:
> The GNU system, and GNU project is entierly volunteer based, and it is
> up to each maintainer to decide what features to work on and include.

Though that seems like a nice abstraction, what if a situation arises
that nobody wants to package newer versions of a project, opting to
stick with the last known good version? That version is soon one
year old, then three, then five, ten.

Would that be acceptable to GNU: that something is maintained in a way
that is rejected by the community, just to serve the whims of the
maintainer?

I can't imagine that the GNU project is really "do whatever the
heck you want" to this strawman degree, and the reason is that
maintainers are somehow selected who do not want to do ridiculous
things with the projects. So then, when they do what they want,
that can be trusted not to cause problems.

I like to refer to this:

http://www.skeeve.com/fork-my-code.html

This was written by some GNU maintainers. It spells out exactly
that they are volunteers who have no obligations to anyone,
which is entirely reasonable, and jives with what you say above.

Yet, they feel bound to protect compatibility, as spelled out
in their section 2.

It contains wording like "we are not free to make gratuitous changes"
and "The user base has come to rely on our programs and how they 
behave".

WOW! Now these authors understand what I'm talking about.

And that is why I can rely on their tool when writing a Makefile
recipe to work around the problems caused by a tool that breaks.

That tool may break, but the workaround recipe won't.

> Or how they decide what to keep or remove.  They have no obligations
> other than some fundamental corner stones of the GNU project and
> themselves.
>
> You mention many different tangets, I'm not really able to follow them
> all...

It was a time-consuming write, as was the my original post.

> I think calling the software we work on for radioactive is very harsh
> which is why I'm not replying to the rest of the email

Anyway, I'm glad you found a convenient exit. The matter probably
doesn't concern you much personally so going into all those tangents
wouldn't do anything for you.

I actually do not have any cycles to burn on this matter. I've pretty
much said my piece; maybe it will make some sort of difference,
maybe not.