Forking TangoGPS (was: tangoGPS community development, patches)

Joshua Judson Rosen rozzin at geekspace.com
Tue Apr 13 16:05:45 CEST 2010


"arne anka" <openmoko at ginguppin.de> writes:
>
> you are definitely off topic.
> this list is neither to insult others at your pleasure nor to discuss  
> issues with your project or ego.

Arne,

You're right. So, please forgive the length of this post:

> those entirely tangogps related mails are filling up my account and have  
> nothing to do with openmoko.
> 
> please, stop abusing other projects infrastructure for your personal needs.

I really hadn't intended this to get this crazy, when I posted
asking Marcus what facilities were available to keep up what he's
doing upstream and to communicate with the rest of the
tangoGPS-hacking community.

When I asked those questions, they were intended to be quick and easy
to answer--and the expected quick exchange was indeed relevant to the
Openmoko community, since there are so many people here who have been
using and hacking on tangoGPS (or at least trying to).

But it's devolved into high-traffic tiff with upstream just calling
people names, and everyone else sharing their *frustrations*.

I don't know if Marcus has actually *watched* (or at least listened to)
that video that he referenced earlier in the thread (in message-ID
<20100106111153.776db6ff at acer>, if anyone actually wants to go re-read
the whole discussion in gmane or something):

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSFDm3UYkeE


... but we all should watch it--it's pretty good.


As they say, the community mailing-list isn't a group therapy session.
It's clear that we're not getting anywhere, anyway.


So, here goes: I'm forking tangoGPS.

And this doesn't make me a `poisonous person'. This fork is being done
with all possible respect, and I do still hope that it will be on the
best possible terms--perhaps like when EGCS forked from GCC, or when
people `fork' the Linux kernel to work on new subsystems: a good-natured
fork to do more `experimental' exploration that may not be immediately
possible or appropriate for Marcus in tangoGPS. Marcus will be free to
incorporate whatever work we do on this new fork into future releases
of tangoGPS, if he likes--on whatever timeline he likes; he'll also
be free to ignore the parts that he doesn't like. As will everyone else.

We're going to have a go at integrating libgps, for example.


I'm going to try to do my best to provide a sense of leadership and
direction on this new project (let's call it "foxtrotGPS"--I'm sure we
can find many reasons for that name; I already have a slew of my own :)),
and to be responsive when people submit patches for review (and hopefully
inclusion). Even for people whose patches don't go upstream, we'll have
a Bazaar VCS repository that you can use to keep track of what we're
doing upstream and help maintain your patches (branches) going forward.

If anyone's interested in relevant public discussion on foxtrotGPS,
we have the foss-gps mailing list hosted by the folks at OSGeo:

    http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/FOSS-GPS

Thank you, Risto, for asking them create it :)


Marcus: if you would like to talk about why I feel the need to fork
your project and am proceeding despite my afore-mentioned reluctance--
and what, if anything, it means to you--we can talk about that privately.

Let me know, and I'll give you my telephone-number--e-mail just doesn't
seem to have enough bandwidth for us; I'd *really* prefer if we could
keep things cordial and professional between our two projects.


So, here we go. It'll be an adventure.
We can dance if we want to.


I know some people are probably going to be very excited by this news,
but it takes a couple of days to get a fork properly bootstrapped--
it's not *just* `run through the codebase and change names' :)

So please be patient, let your passions cool a *little* bit,
and there will be something to show this weekend.


Thank you, all.

(And thank you, Marcus, especially!)


-rozzin.

-- 
"Don't be afraid to ask (λf.((λx.xx) (λr.f(rr))))."




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