Forking TangoGPS (was: tangoGPS community development, patches)

[Sebastian Krzyszkowiak]

On Tue, Apr 13, 2010 at 16:05, Joshua Judson Rosen <rozzin at geekspace.com> wrote:
> "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))))."

Thanks, I was waiting for that since start of that discussion. If I
were more interested in GPS apps, then I would do that myself ;) But
doing something I won't be able to continue just to show something to
someone would be a non-sense.

Code available in some decent version control system is a must have to
me when I'm contributing to some project, and in my opinion not having
such SCM is good reason to fork.

I wish both of projects good, as I like TangoGPS, but I don't like
fact, that it doesn't have any public SCM available for read only
access. I hope everything from FoxtrotGPS that can be merged into
TangoGPS will be merged, and thanks to that both projects will become
better.

Forks can be both positive and negative, it all depends on people.

-- 
Sebastian Krzyszkowiak
dos