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

Matthew Phillips mattp at cpan.org
Wed Oct 26 13:50:13 GMT 2016


Christian,
I don't believe it is fair at all to attribute malice to Peter in this
situation. He's mentioned multiple times throughout this process that
although he wants what he thinks is best, that the reason he's reached out
is to let the user base decide.

Regarding your desire for active development and it being more likely with
a joint team, I can only point to a quote from Frew from a mail chain on
the perl.modules list:

"I am content with Riba's plan, though am skeptical he could find a person
living who can replace him.  Not to offend the various people who could,
but the combination of intelligence, caution, and knowledge of the project
itself, and motivation is going to be hard to pass along, though I'd love
to be proven wrong.

 Not to be overly negative but I also don't think what any of us do about
this will make a difference. I will be astounded if there is another major
DBIC release in the year after ribasushi leaves. That gives the community
and pause admins plenty of time to act after the fact."

The majority of the conversations that have taken place under the operating
assumption that he no longer has the will or time to continue his role, and
will be stepping down. With his newfound employment involving DBIC this has
changed his situation, but for reasons he has outlined it is very difficult
to continue his work unless it is under his terms.

So, given a choice between a proven quantity, and an unproven (and in Frew
and I's opinion almost non-existent) quantity, it seems like the obvious
choice for Peter to continue. The gratitude expressed for Peter's immense
amount of work over the past few years from the users (and me) during these
past few weeks points to this.

Cheers,
Matt

On Tuesday, October 25, 2016, Christian Walde <walde.christian at gmail.com>
wrote:

> 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
>
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