It's nice to see this thread coming back to the original issue after having been hijacked. You can notice that contributers to this thread have opinions but not many facts and arguments to support them.
Contacting the OCaml maintainers privately is definitely not the way to let the development process happen in the open, but bad habits are hard to get rid of.
I think we all understand that the core team is in an uncomfortable and conflicting situation and that the questions asked in this thread won't get an answer. In french this is called "avoir le cul entre deux chaises".
Benedikt did not suggest at any point to set OCaml free from the original developers, he suggested to set it free from the INRIA.


On Thu, Dec 8, 2011 at 10:28 AM, Benedikt Meurer <benedikt.meurer@googlemail.com> wrote:

On Dec 8, 2011, at 10:54 , Alain Frisch wrote:

> On 12/08/2011 10:10 AM, Benedikt Meurer wrote:
>> There were already a few useful comments on the topic, but no statement from the current INRIA officials. Opening up the development of OCaml is a great suggestion, for example. Personally I'd even suggest to disconnect OCaml and INRIA, with an independent team of core maintainers (with appropriate spare time and knowledge). INRIA would still contribute to OCaml, but no longer control OCaml.
>
> Honestly, opening up the development of OCaml would be terrific; but trying to disconnect it from INRIA sounds like a very bad idea to me.
>
> Concerning the issues with the ARM port, there is no chance to get a good support for this architecture (which includes accepting patches) without someone in the core team who feels responsible for the port and commits to maintaining it.  You might want to create a new "core team" completely disconnected from INRIA, but the problem would remain the same (I don't believe in a completely decentralized development model for something like OCaml).

The problem is IMHO that there is no one at INRIA caring about ARM. In an open model we would have maintainers for the ARM port(s).

> Instead, I'd suggest contacting the existing core team (caml@inria.fr) in order to find a solution.

I wasn't aware that there is a separate communication channel for the core team. I was under the impression that the caml-list was the best way to reach both the core team and the community.

> Best regards,
> Alain

greets,
Benedikt

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