Re: emacs21-branch (Re: ognus)

[Denys Duchier <Denys.Duchier@ps.uni-sb.de>]

Dave Love <d.love@dl.ac.uk> writes:

> I'm not aware of an accreditation scheme.
> 
> If you are volunteering to provide that effort, and can you show
> competence to do it, great, contact the maintainer and perhaps you
> can change things.

Exactly what I was saying: you need to be specially accredited by the
powers that be simply in order to access information.

> Why should maintainers expend the effort to do that if it's better
> devoted to improving the software?

No effort need be expended.  These days, we all use CVS to develop
software.  You simply need to give anonymous read access, just like we
have it for Gnus.

> GNU is about cooperation and volunteers make things happen.

You'd be more likely to get volunteers if they could observe the
on-going developments and decide whether there is something they can
contribute to.

But really, all I am suggesting is that the on-going development be
made transparent rather than opaque.  No effort is involved.  The
general public benefits by being better informed, and as a result can
also better decide whether, what and how to contribute back to the
project.  The project itself doesn't have to change its policy about
accepting contributors.  Everybody wins.  The only thing that we loose
is the veil of mystery.

Cheers,

-- 
Dr. Denys Duchier			Denys.Duchier@ps.uni-sb.de
Forschungsbereich Programmiersysteme	(Programming Systems Lab)
Universitaet des Saarlandes, Geb. 45	http://www.ps.uni-sb.de/~duchier
Postfach 15 11 50			Phone: +49 681 302 5618
66041 Saarbruecken, Germany		Fax:   +49 681 302 5615