Re: [Caml-list] Some comments on recent discussions

[Alain Frisch <alain.frisch@lexifi.com>]

On 12/06/2011 04:24 PM, Jonathan Protzenko wrote:
> I think the main point of the discussion is to improve "the community".
> If we really want to improve OCaml as a whole, then I think we can put
> our efforts on better areas than patching the compiler.

I completely disagree with you (and this is rare enough!). The 
discussion that Benedikt started is not about improving the community, 
it is about improving the core system.  Both are important issues, but 
discussing them together will not help make any progress.

If someone wakes up a morning with a strong desire to help OCaml and 
wonders how to contribute in the most efficient way, then it could make 
sense to compare the relative benefits of improving the compiler vs. the 
community vs. writing a book vs. etc.

But the situation is not like that: people work on different topics 
according to what they enjoy or need.  It happens that Benedikt has been 
working on issues which he (and others) considers important enough to 
deserve some attention.  The question is now how to turn this work into 
something useful for OCaml, and also how to avoid creating some 
frustration amongst people who are willing to contribute on the core system.


That said, I'd argue to avoid creating a "community" fork.

It should be noted that while INRIA maintains its primary role in the 
development of OCaml, the "core development team" is not entirely made 
of people from INRIA.  Historically, Jacques Garrigue has contributed a 
lot to OCaml without being affiliated with INRIA.  More recently, 
several people outside INRIA have gained and used direct commit rights 
to the OCaml SVN repository.  Experiments and proposals are typically 
carried on branches (which are publicly available), discussed amongst 
developers, and then sometimes integrated in the trunk.  This works 
quite well, and I'm happy that Xavier continues exercising his 
leadership to decide ultimately what goes into OCaml and what doesn't.

The problem is not so much the current process than the size of the 
"core development team" and the fact that many of its members can only 
contribute very little of their time to OCaml.  I'd thus argue to 
enlarge this group with more people who have demonstrated their skills 
for working on the core system.



Alain