On Sun, 11 Apr 2010 19:19:26 -0400 Joshua Judson Rosen <roz...@geekspace.com> wrote:
[...] Let me summarize: * you are well aware that forks are potentially damaging * you wrote one patch that was not accepted * now you spread fud and threaten to damage the tangoGPS project Well okay, you certainly have the freedom to damage the tangoGPS project which is a major contribution to the free software world... But: tangoGPS is an excellent piece of software, actively maintained and developed and very focused on the user. Any good quality contribution is highly welcome and this means: User experience first. Developer ego last. And nope, I don't have the time to hang out on IRC - that's because I have plenty of life in the real world. And I guess that's why I develop GPS software - you can make best use of it if you leave your desk and go out. All major software projects have pretty high hurdles of participation. One of the most excellent software projects is certainly Debian - and they are well known for a veeery lengthy process to become a Debian Developer. If you go there, submit an invasive patch to apt and demand to become a Debian Developer or otherwise you fork Debian - well, people will only laugh at you. That's because Debian is so big that your fork wont do any damage. Probably one of the key aspects of tangoGPS is its simplicity, that's why so many people like it. Keeping it that way takes a tremendous amount of discipline and thought. The easier it looks, the more work and the more thought has been spent on it. It is always easy to add more buttons, more menus, more patches more everything. Everybody has different ideas about what is needed and for any feature you will find someone who wants to have it - finally you end up with plenty of buttons everywhere. The totally overloaded toolbars of Openoffice or Word are a good example for this. Under the hood it all this leads to code obesity. It is like eating a cookie here, a cake there, some fish and chips, and one day you wake up and you have to carry 140kg body weight with you around at every step. I found a nice picture about patches: http://www.globalnerdy.com/2009/02/26/always-keep-salt-in-the-server-room/ And patches are like patch-cables: they potentially do something, but the question is how much of an improvement they are and how they are done. There is a good quote of Antoine de Saint-Exupery: "Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away." The success of the iPods is a great example for this. Good contributions and long term commitement to tangoGPS are always welcome!! I will stay commited to the user community and the continued success of tangoGPS. My special thanks to all the people who have given me encouragement with their friendly feedback and support, and to all people who have actively contributed, especially packagers and blog-writers. Have fun, Marcus _______________________________________________ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community