Re: [Caml-list] OCaml development site

["N. Owen Gunden" <ogunden@phauna.org>]

On Fri, May 07, 2004 at 12:44:19PM +0200, Christophe TROESTLER wrote:
> Richard Jones and myself are thinking about setting up a collaborative
> development site for OCaml projects.  Not only this can show to the
> world how active the OCaml community is [and to prevent code from
> disappearing when the developer is not interested in maintaining it
> anymore] but also serve as a base for a CPAN-like repository.

I'm not sure the CPAN-like repository is the right approach.
Introducing a second code distribution platform would create
competition, which in this case is most definitely /not/ healthy,
because there are so few people working on O'Caml packaging now.  A lot
of work has gone into and continues to go into GODI/GODIVA, and a lot of
overlapping work would have to go into this CPAN-like repository.

Will Lovas and I considered designing just such a system way back in
September, and we decided not to for similar reasons.  The reasons are
even more potent now, however, because of all the progress since then.

What has been outlined here and in other threads indicates that many
people do not understand exactly how GODI and GODIVA work.  For example,
it is not cathedral-type development--I know this for sure as I've
released packages through GODI without having to get them reviewed by
the Master.

It has also been suggested to work out a system that can incrementally
be improved.  GODI/GODIVA is such a system.  For example, I would like
to see the hairier parts of GODI (BSD make, pkgsrc) replaced by O'Caml
tools eventually (and I think there are even bugs for this).

My suggestion to anyone wanting to brighten package management and
distribution of O'Caml code is: join godi-list, get a svn account from
Gerd, try to package some things up with GODIVA, and then complain about
what you don't like (or even fix it!).  Help to morph GODI/GODIVA into
the right tool.  I think at this early stage, even seemingly large
design changes are possible, if it is deemed that they are necessary.

Finally, the idea of giving developers a place to host their websites,
cvs accounts, and mailing lists is probably an orthogonal problem to
GODI.  So sure, go ahead with that if you want to.  I warn you that it
seems on this list that O'Caml programmers are very particular about
what revision control system (and probably web tools, etc.) they use, so
may be hard to please a critical mass :).

w00t for $0.02.
 - O

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