[MacRuby-devel] The future of MacRuby

Fri Apr 6 10:29:50 PDT 2012

Here are the initial results of the survey. I'll update the results again
on Monday once everyone has had a chance to fill it out.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/22962502/survey_results.pdf

Daniel

On Thu, Apr 5, 2012 at 4:44 PM, Daniel Westendorf <daniel at prowestech.com>wrote:

> Wow, lots of news there. Thanks for the explanation Matt.
>
> I created a quick survey to help quantify and gauge how the community
> feels. Please fill it out.
>
> http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/J5JLMFT
>
> Daniel
>
> On Thu, Apr 5, 2012 at 4:06 PM, Matt Aimonetti <mattaimonetti at gmail.com>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.htmlannouncing MacRuby 0.11 really soon.
>> His last commit was a change of license back in October:
>> https://github.com/MacRuby/MacRuby/commit/ac2a7a8e678d19e44d3c64a9508a8370d082dca2
>> <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*
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> MacRuby-devel mailing list
>> MacRuby-devel at lists.macosforge.org
>> http://lists.macosforge.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/macruby-devel
>>
>>
>
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