2023: Focusing on stability, GitHub Sponsors, and Frozen DIPs

[thebluepandabear]

On Monday, 20 February 2023 at 12:38:56 UTC, Mike Parker wrote:
> As we are now nearly two months into the new year, I'm becoming 
> both excited and anxious.
>
> I'm excited because some of the ideas and goals I and others 
> have had for D, the community, and the ecosystem, are starting 
> to take shape. I'm eagerly anticipating the announcements I'll 
> be able to make as the year progresses.
>
> I'm anxious because the work needed to be able to make some of 
> those announcements is not trivial. We have a lot to do and, as 
> always, we're faced with limited resources. At the moment, 
> we're learning some skills that we can apply to both organize 
> the resources we do have and pull in more. I'm confident we can 
> make it happen, but it sill feels a bit daunting.
>
> I can't be more specific than that at the moment, but the time 
> that I can start being specific isn't too far away.
>
> For now, I do have a few announcements I can make.
>
> ### Gripes and wishes
> For starters, please keep your gripes and wishes coming in to 
> social at dlang.org. The flood became a trickle and has been quiet 
> for a bit now. I'll post a separate reminder about this at the 
> end of this month, but I plan to keep taking emails on this 
> until the end of March. At the end of March or in early April 
> I'll start organizing everything that people have sent in. I'll 
> publish it for everyone to view and discuss, and we'll start 
> discussing internally what we can and can't achieve, what is 
> and isn't a priority, etc. The more data we have the better, so 
> please keep it coming!
>
> ### Focusing on stability
> As a result of a discussion that took place during our January 
> meeting (summary coming this week!), Walter and Átila have 
> decided to shift gears a bit. For the next year, they want to 
> emphasize stability and robustness.
>
> Generally, that means giving priority to issues deemed 
> fundamental, such as features that aren't working as 
> advertised, or long-standing bugs that detract from the user 
> experience. As a start, Walter has lately been working on 
> circular reference bugs, issues with features like `export` and 
> `.di` generation, etc.
>
> Over the coming months, I expect we'll start looking beyond 
> one-off issues from Bugzilla to see how we can tackle more 
> complex problems, like reducing compile times, solving template 
> emission bugs, etc.
>
> This is one area where the gripes lists will come in handy. So 
> again, please keep them coming!
>
>
> ### GitHub Sponsors
> As of last month, our Flipcause account is no longer active. 
> Most everyone who was supporting us there has already moved 
> over to PayPal or Open Collective. Thanks to all of you who 
> continue to support us.
>
> Now we have a new option. We've finally gotten GitHub Sponsors 
> set up. For now, the tiers are set up to roughly mirror those 
> at Open Collective. That's just a start. We'll look at 
> adjusting all of the tiers across both sites in the coming 
> months. I haven't yet [added it to the donate 
> page](https://dlang.org/foundation/donate.html), but I'll get 
> to it soon.
>
> If you are able to support us, even if it's only a few dollars 
> here and there, please consider doing so when you can. In the 
> coming months, we'll need all the funding we can get in order 
> to carry out much needed change. For example, we're going to 
> ramp up a number of servers to migrate various ecosystem 
> services to Foundation management (the plans are on hold right 
> now, but only for a short while longer), and some of the work 
> that needs doing will have to be done on a contract basis if 
> it's going to get done at all.
>
> As an example, our server bill is only around $50/month right 
> now. That's the server to which Vladimir Panteleev recently 
> migrated the documentation tester for a 50% increase in build 
> times. We should be able to use the same box for some other 
> things, but our server bill is going to increase at some point.
>
> Down the road, I plan to set something up to show our financial 
> flow. But in the meantime, any amount we can stash in the 
> reserves right now will come in handy at a later date. So 
> thanks to any financial support you can give us.
>
> As a reminder, please keep an eye on our YouTube channel:
>
> https://www.youtube.com/@TheDLanguageFoundation
>
> Now that we're in the YouTube Partner Program, watching, 
> liking, and sharing our videos is one of the easiest ways you 
> can support us.
>
> ### Frozen DIPs
> As of now, **the DIP queue is closed to new DIPs**.
>
> DIPs that are already in review or that are already in the PR 
> queue can still go forward, but please do not submit any new 
> DIPs for the time being.
>
> The DIP process is getting a long-needed overhaul. Over time, 
> I've had feedback from people who have authored DIPs and those 
> who decided not to. There are a number of different opinions 
> about how things can change, but there are some common themes 
> among them.
>
> I'll write in more detail about this later, but there are a few 
> major goals I have with the overhaul:
>
> * reduce the burden on the author
> * reduce the amount of time a submitted DIP is in review
> * establish support for fleshing out ideas before a DIP is even 
> written
> * establish support for developing initial DIP drafts before 
> they are submitted
>
> Previously, I'd always considered development of the DIP 
> separate from the DIP "process", which I saw as beginning with 
> the submission of a pull request. In reality, the process 
> begins even before an author opens an editor to start typing. I 
> hope that by recognizing that, and by providing support for 
> discussing ideas and writing the DIP, we'll foster an 
> environment that still maintains a relatively high bar for DIPs 
> that get submitted, but also creates a filter such that 
> potential DIP authors can be more confident that they aren't 
> wasting their time once they get to the development stage. By 
> the time they get there, they'll have no doubt if it's an idea 
> worth pursuing.
>
> I expect the freeze to last a few months. I'll be more concrete 
> about dates when I can.
>
> In the meantime, as I have mentioned before, I'm eliminating 
> the Final Review round from the process we have now, and I'm 
> willing to run more than one review at a time. If you have 
> submitted a DIP to the PR queue, I'll be in touch soon to see 
> if you're ready to move forward.
>
> ### More to come
> I intend to publish the January and February meeting summaries 
> by the end of this week. As I mentioned before, I botched my 
> recording of the January meeting (the audio output wasn't 
> recorded, only my microphone was). Given the black hole that is 
> my memory, I had to enlist the help of some of the attendees to 
> gather up enough info for the summary. It won't be at the level 
> of detail you're used to, but it's the best I can do. The 
> recording of the February meeting is fine, so that summary will 
> be normal.
>
> I hope very soon now to finally be able to share some news that 
> I'd agreed to be quiet about for a few weeks. It's the first 
> step we've taken to a new future for the D Language Foundation. 
> We're all very excited by it. I don't know if it will have the 
> same effect in the community at large, but I hope it shows how 
> serious we are about rolling up our sleeves and belatedly 
> adapting to circumstances that have changed and continue to 
> change.
>
> I'll say more about that as soon as I can. I'll close now with 
> a few reminders.
>
> * If you can contribute to a project anywhere in the ecosystem, 
> please do so!
> * If you can contribute to the core DLang projects and aren't 
> sure what to do, please contact Razvan or Dennis!
> * If you are able to support us financially in any way at all, 
> [please do so](https://dlang.org/foundation/donate.html)!
> * Blog and tweet about your D projects!
> * Share [our YouTube 
> videos](https://www.youtube.com/@TheDLanguageFoundation) far 
> and wide!

k

snowflake