Re: [Caml-list] GODI is shutting down

[Anil Madhavapeddy <anil@recoil.org>]

On 22 Jul 2013, at 22:21, "Gerd Stolpmann" <info@gerd-stolpmann.de> wrote:

> There is also another point that was driving me mad in the past weeks,
> namely missing respect from the OPAM guys. Given the fact that OPAM is
> only a thin layer around ocamlfind (and guess who wrote it), and given the
> fact that GODI was pioneering in many fields, I was expecting nicer
> wordings, and less dumb campaigning ("we have 400 packages, and you only
> 170"). OPAM is only harvesting what I seeded many years ago.

So when you describe the virtues of GODI, you call it 'advocating', and when
Fabrice describes the virtues of OPAM, it's 'dumb campaigning'. This is
splendidly reminiscent of US politics!

I don't find any of this source-based package management particularly novel.
I've worked in the OpenBSD ports tree since the late 90s, and it's way ahead
of either OPAM or GODI. I think where OPAM contributes most over any other
source manager are the three points on the front page that I iterated earlier
in this thread:

- multiple simultaneous compiler installations.
- flexible package constraints.
- a Git-friendly development workflow.

The first is very useful, but PATH munging is certainly not novel. The Git
workflow is heavily inspired by Homebrew.

The constraint solver has seen a tremendous amount of work though:
there's one version built into OPAM (tweaked relentlessly by Thomas with
heuristics), and the external CUDF solvers from the Mancoosi project which
are magically accurate (but not yet integrated by default until they are
packaged on different repositories).

Anyway, I'm not a GODI user, but I think you're doing a disservice to your
loyal GODI users if you shut it down in a huff. There are features (notably
Windows support) where it'll take OPAM some time to catch up.  I think that
the real reason that you're shutting it is nothing to do with "respect", but
is good old-fashioned burnt-out:

> Although there are still a lot of GODI users, it is unavoidable to shut GODI down due to lack of supporters, especially package developers. I was more or less alone in the past months, and my time contingent will not allow it to do the upgrade to OCaml 4.01 alone (when it is released).

Instead of doing such a heroic solo job (which I'm not being funny about --
it really is a lot of work), why not spend the time to open up GODI as well?

Most of the OPAM package descriptions come from *other people*. We just review
them, give feedback if necessary, click the merge button and fix errors that
creep through.  And even that takes up a surprising amount of time...

-anil