Some Tunes history (was: Boring)

[Francois-Rene Rideau]

Dear JVS,

> Dear TunesPeople (esp Fare)
>
>>>   Now, having granted you that, I feel disappointed by your
>>> attitude. {snip}
>>> If you're unable to propose anything yourself,
>>> please don't require contemptously people to do everything.
>
> I actually DID propose quite a lot (about a year and a half ago).
   Yes, you were quite an active and interesting member,
and I was sorry you didn't become active again after you moved to
South Africa.


> I even made a few very simple suggestions about a common "symbolic
> assembly language" and even a simple interpreter to jumpstart the
> whole thing (all of which was ignored, apart from some blistering
> invective from some transient Frenchman who didn't know the
> difference between a compiler and an interpreter).
   Those were very interesting suggestions,
and I hoped you could develop them later.
But *at the time you proposed it*,
the project was still looking for its goals and general design principles,
so details were not yet adequate for discussion,
only to have an idea.
   Then Mike left, and I was left as the only undertaking member,
so I had to takeover the project.
People like Jecel, Rainer, David, Patrick, JCh, Cedric
(sorry for the forgotten ones) have indeed proposed
direct corrections and enhancements,
while Chris published the Interfaces subproject page;
but else, I've been mostly alone.
Thus, no doubt my tastes and ideas,
as enriched by all the fine people I've been in contact with,
but mine altogether,
are with very few exceptions the only ones exposed on the page:
very few ever proposed anything for publishing !
   If you have anything to oppose, please do oppose.
Just criticism is not enough.
   *Now* is the time for the details of your symbolic assembler !
(Also, I just received a message from someone having developped
Terse, such a language in use since 1987... more when I know more)


> There was also a [hem] Tunes Charter, or whatever,
> which seems to have been studiously ignored.
   You are unfair as thinking you've been ignored.
Please check the mailing list archive.
   As I recall things, your Charter proposals were integrated
into Mike's document, which you approved as "shaping your rough suggestions
into a coherent whole".
   Mike's Charter was never voted, as few replied,
and amendments were proposed.
   When Mike left, I rewrote the very same charter,
by making the vocabulary simpler and more consistent,
clarifying the role of coordinators,
and what happens in cases of disagreement between members and coordinators.
I moved the project goals out of the Charter,
that is meant to constitue how the project is being managed,
not what the contents of the project are
(and hence, we needn't a special decision everytime we change some goal).
I also stripped the Charter from details that I feel
do not have belong to it, but rather to the de facto organization,
as described in other documents: contents and layout of messages,
numbering of mail-discussion threads, etc.
Which does not mean I've ignored those most interesting details,
of which you were an active proponent:
unhappily, I have no control as to how the current mailing list works,
but to subscribe and unsubscribe people.
If you would implement or convince someone to implement your ideas
to thread messages automatically,
I'll be glad to replace the current code.
But I don't personally feel like writing software to correct
the deficiencies of internet mail in such an ad-hoc way.
And I *know* from experience that you just can't ask people to
*manually* comply by such constraining message format,
because they have no adapted tool.


> Cheers for now!
   Cheers !
   Also, I hope you don't think I'm angry or have anything against you
or your propositions. I'm just prefer criticism to be *constructive*,
so as I see you have things to say, I invite you to do say those things.

--    ,        	                                ,           _ v    ~  ^  --
-- Fare -- rideau@clipper.ens.fr -- Francois-Rene Rideau -- +)ang-Vu Ban --
--                                      '                   / .          --
Join the TUNES project for a computing system based on computing freedom !
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