[Aptitude-devel] Stepping down as maintainer/developer

[Daniel Hartwig]

On 28 February 2012 01:46, Christian PERRIER <bubulle at debian.org> wrote:
>
> So, really, your mail takes me by surprise. I went back quickly though
> the ML archive and found out that Daniel and you were discussing abou
> tyour proposed patches but...unless I overread thigns, I didn't find
> these discussion really being potentially demotivating ones.
>

Nor was that my intent.

Upon looking at the changes there were some points which I felt were a
technical concern, some style issues, and some other minor questions.
I had hoped to convey that--even though I was raising these
concerns--the changes were still functional, appeared correct, and
were fine for inclusion.

Aptitude's code base has a very well established style which is
clearly visible in any source file.  The style used in these changes
differs significantly from that.  It is a very simple change for a
developer to adapt to the coding style of the project they are working
on and this is certainly a requirement of contributing to any major
software project.

It is fine to include one or two files where the styles differ, sure,
but when these changes changes accumulate and you have several
developers each using their own personal style (rather than the
established style of the project) then the project as a whole suffers
for the inconsistency.


> This is maybe something that needs to be discussed and if this is the
> problem, then maybe you rmail may trigger a fruitful
> discussion.....where everybody listens to others' arguments instead of
> trying to push one own arguments.
>

I certainly accept Manuel's responses to the technical points--again,
the changes *are* functional and appear correct.  They were issues
that I felt should simply be brought to his attention.  The kind of
issues that, IMO, can save a developer much trouble in-the-future and
make it easier for others to follow the logical progression of
changes.

> Would it be something you would consider? I think it would be really
> sad if, after reviving the whole thing, a dispute emerges and
> half-ruins the efforts made by everybody.
>

I too feel that it would be a great shame for Manuel to leave at this
point.

Please do open up discussion rather than simply walking away.  We are
all trying to maintain and improve the quality of the project here,
and critiquing each others' work and the project as-a-whole is an
important part of that process; it is not in any way a personally
directed attack.