[Dbix-class] Clarification on the split-namespace proposal

[Christian Walde]

On Mon, 24 Oct 2016 13:20:27 +0200, Peter Rabbitson  
<rabbit+dbic at rabbit.us> wrote:

> On 10/23/2016 10:55 PM, Christian Walde wrote:
>> On Sun, 23 Oct 2016 22:19:42 +0200, Andrew Beverley <andy at andybev.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> - Riba was prepared to keep maintaining (and "tightening" in slower
>>> time) "DBIC"
>>
>> As far as i understood there was no circumstance under which he'd have
>> been involved further, at all.
>
> The situation has changed. Notably I have taken up employment where (all  
> current plans considered) I will have to maintain at minimum a private  
> fork of DBIx::Class for my own use.
>
> In light of several proposals on the list, the gist of my *revised*  
> position is:
>
>
> - If there is sufficient interest in myself continuing to be the sole  
> gatekeeper/point of responsibility for the DBIx::Class distribution
>
>    and
>
> - Folks are not concerned with neither my tangibly limited availability  
> going forward (I started a 40h/week job), nor with the potential  
> conflict of interest (i.e. that I might slip up and put $work concerns  
> ahead of the userbase)
>
>    and
>
> - All current comaints are content with relinquishing their claims to  
> the namespace and continuing building up on my work outside of the  
> DBIx::Class distribution
>
>
> Then, yes: I suppose you can consider this a proposal to avail myself to  
> keeping the preexisting actual setup unchanged for the foreseeable  
> future.

I was conflicted about this. But the more i think about this i lean  
against it.

The main thing i want is to retain a development speed that keeps it  
healthy enough to keep living on. Below a certain level of development  
activity it will die because it won't be able to keep up with the world  
changing around it, and dbic won't die gracefully either.

I'd love to see you stay involved if only because you're currently the one  
person with the most intimate knowledge about DBIc.

On the other hand there is absolutely no guarantee as to the kind of  
development speed there will be with you, other than "low".

Additionally, given that you, as per comments you made to me, see it as  
your duty as an engineer to use every tool at your disposal to do what you  
consider best for the engineering integrity of the software at hand.  
You've made it sufficiently clear that you consider it the best for DBIc  
to freeze, with at most emergency patches applied. Given the fact that  
you've in the past proven that you will stop at nothing to achieve what  
you consider necessary, i see no other choice other than to weigh into  
every consideration i bring to this the fact that you may still be trying  
to achieve your original goal.

Next, this feels like an extortion attempt to me. Whereas before it was a  
clear "You don't like me anymore, so you won't get the toys i was planning  
to make." it is now "I'll be making my own toys as well, but unless you  
play by my rules only, you don't get to play with my toys."

You've also made no attempt to assure us that your further involvement  
will resolve currently existing deadlocks ("wait until my branch is done")  
for other contributors.

I know that going with the new governance and a team consisting mainly of  
the developers of modules DBIc depends on is a bit of a gamble. How much  
time will they actually find to contribute? What traps will they run into  
due to not having your level of knowledge?

But weighing that up against all the aforementioned, and the fact that  
your proposal would further tighten things to a single point of failure i  
feel better with the gamble. Particularly since the proposed governance  
structure does not preclude your further involvement at all, be it with  
you being a contributor, or be it with you part of the core team

-- 
With regards,
Christian Walde