[MacRuby-devel] The future of MacRuby

Thu Apr 5 15:35:42 PDT 2012

Opening the flood gates to new contributors sounds great. I have been having less and less free time as of late and haven't been able to keep up with the few things I do to contribute. Watson has been carrying the project almost entirely by himself for the last few months. MacRuby is a large project with lots to do, so I think becoming more open can only help.

It's also great to hear that Evan has agreed to help out as an advisor!

The two things I'd like to see in the near future:

1) Release MacRuby 0.12 (or rename it to 0.11 since there has not been a 0.11 release)

The things holding back a new release are not the release itself. I know it'd be nice to have a new website up, but I think holding back the release is doing far more damage.

2) Move the bug tracker to github issues

I don't think this needs any explanation.

On 2012-04-05, at 6:06 PM, Matt Aimonetti wrote:

> Many of you have been wondering what is going on with the MacRuby project given the lack of up-to-date releases and overall communication.
> I feel we owe you some explanation.
> 
> As a lot of you have noticed, our de-facto project leader Laurent Sansonetti has been M.I.A since October 2011, his last post to this mailing list being
> http://lists.macosforge.org/pipermail/macruby-devel/2011-October/008168.html announcing MacRuby 0.11 really soon.
> His last commit was a change of license back in October: https://github.com/MacRuby/MacRuby/commit/ac2a7a8e678d19e44d3c64a9508a8370d082dca2
> 
> Laurent is fine. As described on his twitter http://twitter.com/lrz and LinkedIn http://www.linkedin.com/in/sansonetti accounts, Laurent is no longer with Apple and is clearly also no longer directly involved with the MacRuby project on a day-to-day basis.
> Laurent is currently busy with another project and and hopes to someday be able to contribute to the MacRuby project again.
> 
> While no one on this list can speak for Apple, and Apple as a company does not tend to comment on its future plans or intentions, I think it's reasonable to imagine that Apple would be more than happy to have the MacRuby project decide for itself what its destiny is and how to achieve it.  If they did not want the community to be involved or drive such a process, they would not have released MacRuby as open source or created the project infrastructure to facilitate it.   It is time for us to stop looking to Apple to provide guidance, leadership and coding for the project, in other words, and take on those challenges for ourselves!   MacRuby is already very powerful and comparatively stable as a development platform, now it's time for us to take things to the next level.
> 
> I personally think it will finally allow us to communicate and collaborate on the actual process of development as it occurs, rather than the previous practice of simply seeing code appear from some hidden, internal branch which was driven almost exclusively by a single person
> 
> Doing all of this in the open should lead to far more people being interested in the project, not just as users but as developers and leaders.  No one rushes to fill a position that is occupied by someone else, but now we have a vacuum to fill, and that can be a good thing in terms of encouraging more people to step forward.
> 
> Here is how I see things and I would love to hear more about what you guys think.
> MacRuby is a great project, but: 
> the target audience & projects aren't clear
> the target platform (OS X) isn't the one we all really want to target (iOS)
> Cocoa's API is awesome but not user friendly/easy to grasp
> 
> What I'd like to suggest is the following:
> 
> 1. Define clear goals for MacRuby that we can easily evaluate:
> Focus primarily on making MacRuby the tool to use for quickly prototyping OS X and iOS applications.
> Remove dependency on libauto so MacRuby can run post Mountain Lion and on iOS.
> 2. Increase the number of contributors:
> Define areas of contribution:
> implementation itself (mainly requires C, C++ knowledge)
> prototyping focus (templates, wrapper APIs, modules, tools: a full ecosystem aimed at being more productive)
> documentation (getting started, guides, FAQs, wiki, demos, hacker guides)
> support
> empower contributors:
> move the website to github for easier contribution
> better release process and roadmap
> better process to review pull requests & give commit rights
> 3. Improve communication:
> start an active and official chat room (IRC, campfire like or something else)
> open discussions about plans for the project and progress made
> better collaboration with other Ruby implementation teams (Rubinius, JRuby, MagLev and of course Matz/C Ruby)
> 
> Let's not forget that MacRuby is and will remain a free Open Source project and that means we need your help and support. 
> Without you, this project doesn't mean much so please voice your opinion and if you decide to do so, become an active participant to MacRuby's success.
> 
> I would like to thank Apple for their historical support and Laurent for starting this project and all his work so far. Without those contributions, MacRuby would never have existed and the project will more than welcome any future participation by either Apple or Laurent.
> At the same time, I don't think the future of this project can or should rest on the shoulders of a single corporate entity, or that of a single individual.  That does not encourage the kind of broad participation, or the kind of overall longevity (in the form of future generations of contributors) that Open Source projects really need to survive over the long term.
> Finally, I'd like to make clear that I see myself more in a role of a facilitator than a technical leader on the order of what Laurent was. This role has been left vacant for more than 6 months now and needs to be filled by a group of people with greater technical skills than mine. Additional contributors are therefore more than welcome to join the team, and their support will be as much appreciated as it is needed.
>  
> Finally, in addition to the already numerous great MacRuby contributors and soon to become contributors, Evan Phoenix (Rubinius) agreed to act as an advisor for the project.
> 
> So, MacRuby community what do you think?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> - Matt
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