Re: [RFC] Moving "manual.org" into core

[Bastien <bzg@gnu.org>]

Hello Thomas,

as a preamble, let me say that I appreciate the directness of your
message and the civil tone of this conversation.  I understand there
are frustrations lingering around, I have my own too, so let's keep
this thread as constructive as possible, because we all deserve it
as a community.

Let me separate two questions: one is my attitude in dealing with this
migration; another one is my general ability as a maintainer.

The first question naturally leads to the other one, but the last one
exists per se and I'll take this opportunity to say a few words.

So, about this manual migration.

Here is a quick timeline:

  In 2013, I said it was a nice experiment.

  In 2014, I said I would be "more than happy" if you and others could
  progress on this: http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.orgmode/85574

  In 2016, Charles quoted me saying: "Where Bastien says: "the day we
  can export org.org to org.texi with very little headache and ad hoc
  configuration, yes, we will make the move.""

  In January 2018, I said: "Having the manual in .org is a great
  achievement, congrats to anyone who worked on this titanic task!
  I'm all for editing manual.org instead of org.texi in the long run."

  In March 2018, I said there was no blocker, "please move ahead".

So I don't think I have been scolding you or anyone working on this,
quite on the contrary.  In my message from 2014, I said I won't have
time to dedicate to the project.  And while I was kind of skeptical
about the idea, I have been consistent in sending encouragements and
in not blocking it.

Maybe I should have explained why I was skeptical: but in 2013-2015,
it was just a gut feeling, and expressing it would probably have been
unproductive; then when I had this project to develop Org from within
Emacs, I was not so sure about it either, so I was first cautious not
to raise premature objections.

When Nicolas sollicited the list again in january, I tried to make a
few inputs: not as constructive as I'd wish they were, but still.

Now, my main input is this: LET'S GO!

So...  I completely recognize my general lack of responsiveness is a
problem and it may have been a problem in this case, but I hope you
see that I carefully tried not to block anyone's work on this.  Again:
asking inputs from emacs-devel@ is not a way of delaying or blocking,
it is just something normal to do considering the move.

So now let's close this issue, I'll write to emacs-devel@ and we will
make the switch.


Now, about my general experience and attitude as a maintainer.

I started to take care of Org-mode in 2011, on January 1st.

Seven years ago... time flies :)

I've been involved in code and communication on the list on a daily
basis until septembre 2012, the day my daughter was born.  Stats may
prove my memory is wrong here, but I think I stayed closely committed
until septembre 2014.  Enters life: I had a burn out, a break up and
I was broke.  Like in: completely broke, no job, no place to stay.

I asked Nicolas whether he would considered to be the maintainer on
several occasions -- the first one dating back to november 2011.  We
always had a frank conversation about this.  Nicolas declined, but we
managed to find a balanced way of collaborating and I confidently
moved from being proactive to being more of a release manager.

Despite not being the "official" maintainer, Nicolas is the de facto
one since 2015.  And again, I cannot express how much I owe to Nicolas
and his consistency for the last three years.

But believe me: I wish I could continue to spend one or two hours per
day coding and communicating on the mailing list: because, it's kind
of a home for me.  But I could not.  And I cannot.


So here is my plan:

- We make the switch to using manual.org.

- We release Org 9.2.

- I extract the contrib/ directory from org-mode.git into a separate
  org-contrib.git to live on code.orgmode.org (something I've wanted
  for long).

- I go down my org-mode TODO list to see if there are importants bugs
  and features I wish to work on.

- In the meantime, I find a new maintainer.

- We release Org 10 and the new maintainer takes on.

I think the whole process can take from 2 to 3 months, and I'm ready
to dedicate more time to Org during these months.

WDYT?

-- 
 Bastien