Re: new Emacs maintainer(s)?

[Thien-Thi Nguyen]

() David Kastrup <address@hidden>
() Wed, 06 Jun 2007 14:06:18 +0200

   I disagree.  x.1 is mostly done in the trunk, x.2+ mostly in a
   stabilized branch.  It is my opinion that this requires different
   skillsets for most of the time.

a release coalesces around some vision for that release, not on a
skillset.  it is precisely because there are different skillsets
required that whoever does x.1 should do x.2+, for three reasons:

 - cohesion of vision for the x.* releases
 - self-improvement in the "maintenance" skillset for x.1 folks
 - self-improvement in the ".1 release" skillset for (x+1).1 folks

what often happens when skillset is taken as the arbiter is that the
x.2+ folks lose the original vision of the x.1 folks, through mis- or
non-communication more than anything, and widen the maintenance duties
to "fix design bugs".  then you get into "how dare that Mere QA Dude
change My code" and other class{ic,ist} organizational problems.

i'd say "that way lies madness" but for the stupifying regularity (and
hence evident normalcy) of such an approach's consequence.

anyway, that's all i have to say on the matter.
heinlein sez: "specialization is for insects."

thi