Re: Cairo as common graphics context

[Alex Perez]

Fred Kiefer wrote:
> Hi Stefan,
>
> Stefan Urbanek wrote:
> > On 15/03/06, Adam Fedor <address@hidden> wrote:
> > > On 2006-03-15 07:53:12 -0700 Stefan Urbanek <address@hidden>
> > > wrote:
> > >
> > > > Looks like all necessary code is already in GNUstep, it is just a
> > > > matter of
> > > > "rewiring" it. But well ... I do not see much into the internals...
> > > Oh yes, actually doing the work - well that's the hard part :-)
> > Excuse me, but I take this from you as a little offence with the
> > meaning:"do not talk, just code". Following text is not going to be
> > only about the issue, but about general attitude on this list. This
> > attitude is repeating on this list again and again...
[snip]

> ...It looks like I am
> currently the only GNUstep developer working on back and the interaction
> between back and gui and also specifically on the cairo backend.

Were you not aware of this prior to this exchange of e-mails? From your 
"looks as if" statement, it sounds as if you were not. This is frankly 
part of the problem. Nobody knows who has the football, who is in 
charge, who is working on what, etc etc.

> As Adam already stated some of your ideas are quite interesting and it
> would be worthwhile to extend GNUstep in that direction. But this will
> only happen if somebody takes the time to do this. It is not, as your
> mail may suggest, that Adam as the project lead could just tell some
> available resource to start working on that. There is nobody available
> at the moment and even then it would be up to that person to decide
> itself, what task to work on.

Well, I think this statement strikes to the heart of the matter. This is 
part of the reason that the GNUstep project has been paralyzed in 
certain areas, especially -back recently. Adam is not willing to ask 
anyone (either because there's nobody to ask or because he simply 
doesn't feel that he should have to delegate/ask anyone else to code 
anything) and so the problem will continue to the end of time unless 
something changes.

> Why did I not reply to your mails yesterday and the day before? Because
> then you would have expected me to actually work on this problem.

Fred, this statement pegged my BS-o-meter HARD into the red. Your lack 
of response implies to many that you simply do not care one way or the 
other, which is not true based on comments you're making in this e-mail. 
 Telling Stefan that you think that just because you respond you take 
on the responsibility of actually coding is an insult to his 
intelligence, because anyone who has more than a few neurons firing in 
their skull would simply *not* assume such a thing.

THere needs to be dialogue, otherwise your silence will also be 
interpreted. Please consider that when you choose not to respond to 
-back related issues. Not having time to do so is one thing, but perhaps 
then you should put out a call for another -back assistant developer. An 
apprentice, if you will, who would siphon their patches through you for 
approval (or, alternatively, if you don't have the time to review 
patches, either someone else or direct SVN commit, if they know what 
they are doing)

Constructive Regards,
Alex Perez