[Gnu-arch-users] minimal efforts idea from Andy

[Thomas Lord]

Andy:

 > If we take the minimal goals, of keeping the current
 > GNU Arch 1.x going, without aiming at solving some of
 > the bigger problems like the Windows port and
 > performance for Linux kernel-size projects, tla 1.x
 > should be able to continue with much less work.  Of
 > course it is not ideal to many people, but the current
 > implementation is usable for many projects.

 > Tom, do you see that as something requiring much less
 > efforts?

Yes, kinda sorta.

If someone wants to take the tortoise role in the tortoise
v. hare parable, that's not a bad way to go.  The GNU project
overall operated on that principle for a long time before 
the linux kernel sparked a firestorm of commercialization.

And it doesn't have to be as anti-progressive as you describe.
For example, if you recall, I once posted a plan for "librification"
with some ridiculous number of steps.  Well, the point of the
plan was that each step was correctness-preserving or enhancing
and many of them, in spite of being "global transforms" to the
code, could be done in increments.  That *kind* of improvement,
even if not literally that plan, can fit neatly into a minimalist
maintainer-ship.  In the longer term it would help prepare for
bigger steps like a revc storage model.

 > And in the mean time, we hope someone will pick up the
 > 2.0 codebase and continue with it.  Maybe Tom will go
 > back to it.

I'm game, spiritually, but I can't do squat (or, arguably, 
simply refuse to) in any way that doesn't come with or as
a side effect of sorting out the financial foo.  I'm currently
spending the money that would normally be set aside for 
utility bills do before the end of the month.  Brick wall
ahead, speeding car enclosing, etc.  A lot of the audience,
I gather, are 20-somethings and might not appreciate the 
perspective of a 39-year-old family guy who finds himself
in this circumstance.  Briefly, it sucks worse than death.

-t