We are forking D

[H. S. Teoh]

On Tue, Jan 09, 2024 at 05:06:20PM +0000, BlueBeach via Digitalmars-d wrote:
[...]
> I think the main reason for some of the reoccurring organisational
> issues and their unpleasant side effects are unresolved questions
> around Walters authority. Since Dlang is an Open Source project, there
> are expectations on a certain level of democracy. Nobody is perfect
> and a flawed democracy would probably suffice, but a lot of people
> seem to experience the Dlang community as a flawed oligarchy where
> only a minority has a saying and sometimes even those people are
> omitted. Maybe a less nice way to describe the style of this project
> is a mix of meritocracy and dictatorship. While nobody is against
> leadership by merit, there is a reason why autocratic forms of
> government are disliked: They are poor in words and highly
> unpredictable.
[...]

>From the first paragraph in Adam's blog on 2024-01-01:

	While the oft-repeated claim that D is a closed-source language
	is not really true (the D-specific parts of the compiler were
	GPL'd as early as 2002, leading to an all-GPL compiler (what we
	now know as gdc) being released in 2004), it is true that D's
	development methodologies are not especially open and that
	decision making has very little meaningful input from the
	community, and this has been true for its entire history.

It has always struck me as somewhat incongruent that while D's *code* is
open source and licensed under an open source license, its development
methologies are very much entrenched in the proprietary (commercial),
closed source mentality. A mentality where decisions are made behind
closed doors and there is no obligation to provide any rationale.  This
leads to a lot of friction with contributors who come in expecting a
more open style of development that one would expect to find in an open
source project, but discovering to their chagrin that it's being run as
if it were a closed source, proprietary project.

Of course, this project was initiated by Walter and he has the right to
choose whatever development methodology he wishes, and if you wish to
play ball in this project then that's just what you have to work with.
And I'm not saying that this style of management 100% doesn't work.  But
D's history has shown us time and again that it is at least one of the
sources of much frustration on the part of contributors who are
expecting an open source project that's run more like an open source
project.

Given our track record so far, perhaps it's time to reconsider the very
fundamental principles by which D is being managed.  From a technical
standpoint, D has no parallels that I know of -- it comes very close to
my ideal of what a programming language should be.  But the way it's
managed leaves a lot to be desired.  It would be a pity for this
beautiful language to languish when under a different style of
management it could be flourishing and taking over the world.


T

-- 
Never criticize a man until you've walked a mile in his shoes. Then when you do criticize him, you'll be a mile away and he won't have his shoes.