Em Fri, 21 Nov 2014 08:45:47 +0000
"Carlos R. Mafra" <crma...@gmail.com> escreveu:
Ok, I see the "integration within the GNU project". I thought that it
would be simpler, that we could keep our development infrastructure
and could keep on doing things the way we have been doing for the
last 6 years. That you guys would simply download the tarballs and
put it in your system. After all Window Maker is under the GPL etc.
It's not an absolute requirement to use GNU development
infrastructure, albeit strongly recommended. Most things can be just
mirrored from or forwarded to the current development facilities.
However, obviously, your commitment to the GNU project would *not*
just be to provide a tarball for us to put in GNU. There are some
necessary things that must be observed: those are all described in the
GNU maintainers manual.
Accepting this proposal deviates too much from what's been
established in the past years and imposes a time cost on the
maintainer (me). I'd have to integrate with the GNU infrastructure
and its way of doing things while things are already working right
now without any extra effort from my side.
The GNU project thought it would be beneficial for both communities to
join efforts (GNU and Window Maker), as our primary wishes and
endeavor are always directed to the prospect of collaboration. Of
course, all those benefits wouldn't come without any effort or
commitment of your or our own part. We judge it's worth; unfortunately
you don't hold the same view.
We would need to change the name to GNU Window Maker, we would
all need to talk about GNU/linux, we could not say "open source"
anymore and we would need to move the code to some other development
place and move our mailing list etc etc etc.
Except from the part of moving the code repository and mailing lists,
all other topics you cited are, naturally, mandatory: this is the GNU
project, after all.
I don't have the time for this. I'm used to the current setup
(which helped to resurrect a dead Window Maker development) and
I am happy with it.
I see. However, I urge you to think beyond yourself: think about the
Window Maker and larger free software community and the benefits you
are possibly giving up just for your personal convenience's sake; your
decision may as well affect many more people besides yourself. The
GNU project has a strong stance in ethics and principles, and one of
the fundamental lessons we've learned is that no real gain comes
without some sacrifice.
Moving to the GNU system right now could help Window Maker gain some
visibility but from my point of view you could also simply use
Window Maker without requiring all this.
That's not how it works. In order to advance the cause of free
software, with the final goal of winning the battle against
proprietary software, the GNU project aims to make GNU a complete and
coherent operating system whilst promoting its philosophy and actively
defending users' freedom. Therefore, we have to make sure that all
pieces of the GNU system fit well philosophically, politically and
technically together.
I am the current maintainer, in the current 6-year-old setup.
I don't want to change under the GNU umbrella and be bounded by
its philosophy and way of doing things. I don't have time to
learn all the needed stuff and change my ways of doing things.
I'm really sorry to hear that.
I'd say that if you want to use Window Maker, then use it.
We'd rather fork it.
We appreciate your 6 years of maintenance. However, almost all of
Window Maker's code is copyrighted by Alfredo K. Kojima the original
author and GNU maintainer who developed it, originally, for the GNU
project. The Window Maker's history is strongly linked to the GNU
project, and knowledgeable people know that. Actually Window Maker's
documentation is filled with explicit references to that fact.
If the GNU project decides to maintain GNU Window Maker, do you think
our version will be considered a fork of yours, or the converse?
The GNU project is really sorry that you've declined to cooperate,
because our policy is to avoid a fork by all means. Now,
unfortunately, we have no choice.
