So what next?

[Egbert Eich]

Stuart Anderson writes:
 > On Tue, 13 Apr 2004, Keith Packard wrote:
 > 
 > > I suggest that we will not be able to reach rough concensus on this issue
 > > in any reasonable timeframe (like the next decade).  However, it is not an
 > > issue which can be left unresolved, so we need to find a way to make a
 > > decision.  I would be willing to accept the board's direction on this
 > > issue.  I suggest that we have it brought to a vote there and move on with
 > > whatever plan they specify.
 > 
 > There was a very clear agreement several months ago on the conference calls
 > that the modular tree was the plan for going forward, as long as it didn't
 > turn out to be a real fiasco. So far, I haven't seen anything that looks like
 > a real fiasco that would warrant this decisions being reversed.

1. I'm not sure if those conference calls should be the basis of this
   decision as they don't seem to represent the majority of developers.
   Although I ask how the group could have reached a consensus when
   the majority of the people of the group have not even looked at the
   code.
2. Furthermore I seem to remember that the consensus was that it is too
   erly to make a final decision since not everything seemed to have 
   stabilized at the time this was discussed.
3. We need to distinguish between a modular build environemnt and
   the choice of tools to achive this. Having a rough consensus on
   the former one doesn't necessarily mean that everybody agrees on
   the latter one.

 > 
 > There may be a couple of things that are yet unproven, so we should clearly
 > identify what these are, and push to prove them to everyones satisfaction.

There are definitly a bunch of things that I've brought forward that
haven't been answered. 
The choice of build tools - which I consider suboptimal for our purposes -
has been made by a small group not representing the majority of developers
and it's possible that it doesn't even meet the needs of those who have
not been involved.
 > 
 > Now that the modular tree is working pretty well, it might be time to take
 > a moment, and consider wether or not there is sufficient documentation to
 > explain how to use/build this tree. It's easy once you have done the 4 steps
 > needed to set it up, but there are places where it is easy to stumble while
 > taking those 4 steps.
 > 

I don't think it is that easy. For some people there are other conditions
to be met than just build the tree in a straight forward and semi-automated
way. 

Egbert.