Time for a break...

[Ethan Blanton]

I am not going to respond to most of this point-by-point, I do not
believe it is constructive.  There are a few things, however, I would
like to clear up.

Gary Kramlich spake unto us the following wisdom:
> Note, this email, and I apologize now for it's lack of brevity, is the
> result of a discussion that took place in devel at conference.pidgin.im
> tonight, so if you were not present, the majority of this will not
> affect you nor make much sense to you.  For those of you that were
> there, here's the real story, and why I did what I did.  Also, there is
> harsh language in this email, if you are sensitive to such language, I
> apologize, and advise you not to continue reading.

The argument yesterday was about the removal of win32 support in
Pidgin.  I fully support it, and I think we should do it.  I don't
think it buys us anything as a project, and it is certainly a support
nightmare.  With the complete core/ui split in 2.0.0, there is no
reason that some enterprising party cannot come along and develop a
native win32 client.

> I still find it funny how you are *ALWAYS* going on about the lack of
> time you have, but you spend quite a bit of time on IRC _discussing_
> topics that, as I stated above, do nothing but hinder other developers.
>  Your discussions *ARE* the source of many interpersonal relation
> problems in this project, and you harbor people's views, opinions, and
> even code as fire to use against them even long after they've stepped
> back.  I'm of course referring to Christian here.  You talk big shit
> behind his back and do absolutely nothing to correct the issue. If *YOU*
> spent half the time you spend not *IGNORING* all the people you call
> idiots, morons, and just plain ignorant, you'd have the time to fix
> these problems.  Instead you keep them around for something to bitch
> about.  Hell, for as long as I can remember, you've been talking about
> how sub-par your own code in the IRC prpl is.  Honestly, what the fuck?!
>  Either fix it, or let it the fuck go.

I have seen mentioned several times that I have attacked Christian
behind his back since he has left the project.  (I even saw this on
his blog, once; it boggled me.) Let me clear something up, right here.

I recognize that Christian put a *ton* of work into the project, and
that there are many features and capabilities which would not exist
without him.  I appreciate all of the time and effort he poured in,
and I think the software is better for his work.  All I can figure, is
that my concerns about a few *technical issues* which are in code
which Christian either wrote or had a hand in; for example:

1) The plugin loader differentiates between feature plugins, protocol
   plugins, and loader plugins.  This means, for example, that a
   loader plugin has to do a lot of extra work to load a protocol
   plugin, having a special proxy object and etc.  I think this is an
   unfortunate limitation.

2) The status API has at least one layer of abstraction more than I
   would have used (StatusPrimitives), and is kind of hard to
   understand.  I say this because it took *me* quite some time to
   understand it, when trying to wrap some of it into Tcl.

I feel that the fact that I have comments about things that Christian
wrote is more related to the fact that he had a hand in so many parts
of the project, than anything else.  In any body of my *own* code of
similar size, I would find similar concerns.

Should we keep an eye on fixing these things?  Yes.  In fact, in my
previous discussion with Gary about GObjectification, we discussed
removing the plugin trichotomy; it is even my understanding that he
has done so, or is aware of a way to do so.  Does this mean that I am
attacking a former developer behind his back?  No.  Christian's code
and work stand on their own, and any criticism of the design or
implementation (which, by the way, for those who do not remember, was
made at a time when Pidgin was not *nearly* so clean, or easy to work
on, and so concessions must be made for this) are just that --
criticisms of portions of code.  It is ridiculous to expect that any
code on an open source project, once committed, is Gospel and can no
longer be discussed on any points that are not merits.  (See LKML.)

> This is goodbye again, maybe temporarily, maybe permanent, maybe just
> discussions, maybe project.  Anyway it goes, these issues need to be
> addressed, because we are not headed down a path that ends well.

Gary, as you mentioned, I really don't have time for Pidgin, and I
make time where I should not.  If you wish to have the discussion of
whether I am more of a detriment than not, have it -- if the consensus
is that I'm in the way, then I'll get out.  I have considered bowing
out for various reasons at numerous points in the past, and this is as
good as any.  I, honestly, have what I wanted out of Pidgin, and I've
had it for years now; the "scratch an itch" equation is weak for me.

Any concerns about IMF aside, I am obligated to carry out one more
year there.  I will do this regardless of my day-to-day participation
in the project.

Ethan

-- 
The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws [that have no remedy
for evils].  They disarm only those who are neither inclined nor
determined to commit crimes.
		-- Cesare Beccaria, "On Crimes and Punishments", 1764
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