Arnd,
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
"Peter B. West" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote on 18.05.2004 05:59:20:project. The situation with FOray is more complicated. I don't know whether it is Victor's intention to fork from HEAD and continue the development along the lines he has previously discussed, or to attempt to integrate HEAD and the maintenance branch in some way. In any case, what Victor is doing will closely parallel the HEAD development, and this, combined with the possibility of some financial support, has a great potential to de-stabilise FOP. I'm not saying this as a criticism of Victor, but as a bald statement of the reality.
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First, I very much wish the FOP team and the project to succeed. Even I my pet project is ultimately successful and even if it's a commercial success I firmly believe that "we" need an open source XSL formatter under the Apache license.
Second, maybe to give you second thoughts about what you and Victor are doing. My personal impression and also my recommendation is to:
Model A: Let one strong developer with resonable time on his hands drive the development of the redesign until it has so far progressed that it's usable for people currently using 0.20.5.
Model B: Refactor the maintenance branch. This keeps more users and therefore more possible contributors on the bandwagon. Refactoring is
tedious and needs experience, but you get that experience quickly and
the motivation stays over time. Also, the maintenance branch source
code is not *that* bad. Yes, it badly needs refactoring in most
places, but it's not beyond repair.
Since I don't see Model A for FOP currently (no strong developer WITH
enough time on the horizon), I believe Model B is what would work
best. Your existing development model for FOP 1.0 is taking too long
IMO. This is not a criticism of any of you, but a personal assessment
of what I think can be achieved with the time available to you. It's
also still more a gut feeling that an analysis. If you can draft a
realistic project plan with people assigned and that gives a reasonable estimate on when you will be done, you can probably do it.
If you can't or the result is too disappointing, please reconsider refactoring the maintenance branch.
I too, have had 'longings' for more development on the maintenance branch--probably because it's what I know and love. I have thought numerous times that I'd like to see committed, some of the PATCHes submitted since 0.20.5. This coming from a desire for what is 'safe' (i.e., the devil I know is safer than the angel I don't know).
What Victor did was going to happen some day or other. Like me, probably a number of others have their own local 0.20.5 branch with some enhancements (yes, for some customers I still use my hacked-up version of 0.20.5). I think his project is good for FOP as long as both projects manage to share at least some things.
Like two years ago, I still don't feel all that comfortable about speaking up on this. After all, it's *your* project, and what the f*** do I have to say about it. Ok, this time I decided to do it. Please don't be offended - it's really meant as a personal opinion from an interested bystander. I hope you can accept it as such.
Thanks for listening,
Arnd Beissner
I don't think I'm the only one who appreciates your point-of-view. I believe you have eloquently conveyed what's on the mind of many in our community. As, in my esteem, each of the members of our community is and should be respected and valued, it is important to hear their perspective point-of-view.
Thanks for contributing,
Web Maestro Clay
