Re: ncurses 4.1

Peter Seebach:
> Look also at the *BSD's; we're up to three free versions of 4.4BSD,
> which have split over issues like this.

Yes, and look at the way the BSD community is getting steamrollered
by Linux as a direct result. No thanks; the path of infinite splits
over who gets to run things is a path to irrelevance. That is why
the customs about project ownership that the free-software community has
been evolving are important. The buck has to stop somewhere, and a
functional equivalent of homesteading and "property" rights is the least
onerous and fairest way to do it (of course we're not talking about
property rights in a money-economy sense here).

> The concern I mostly have here is that, in the other cases, the split
> or divergence of views is marked by a name change. Perhaps Eric
> should release encurses, or Tom should release dncurses?

I've already said that this is not acceptable to me. I will not have my code
under the authority of someone I believe will abuse it. I don't believe
it's acceptable to Zeyd either.

> In any event, I would say that there's ample evidence that splits can
> and will survive, and it looks like this is a typical kind of thing
> over which people split. Normally, this means that the "fork" chooses
> a new name. I'm not sure which maintainer would be the "fork" in this
> case; traditionally, the most active maintainers are the main branch,
> and traditionally, the most senior maintainers are the main branch.

And the most senior maintainers would *still* be the most active
if Thomas hadn't driven both of us away in disgust with the hijacking.

-- 
		Eric S. Raymond