Hi all, 

I guess the subject of the thread is misleading, perhaps we should be talking about an external repository rather than "extending" vanilla? 

I'd certainly be interested in contributing my own externals.

best,

Jaime

On Dec 17, 2014, at 9:33 PM, Alexandre Torres Porres <porres@gmail.com> wrote:

Hello, I don't know if Hans is replaceable and I didn't mean to start a thread about "replacing" him or even point to a new "extended"distro.

I just wanted to highlight what miller mentioned about people considering working on a repository of external objects compatible to vanilla, and how all extended libs should work on vanilla and that he was willing to help make'm work in it.

I, for one, think that's good enough to work as an "extended" replacement, while hans (or any other who'd replace him) carries on with pd-extended (or some new distro).

As far as library management and maintenance goes. In my opinion, maybe that shouldn't be a burden that someone has to carry alone. I don't believe Hans vouched for being the one responsible for maintaining that much libraries on his own. I believe he ended up doing so because the original developers just didn't care anymore and abandoned it...

I have to say that's a hell of a bummer. And that I've had some experiences trying to reach creators and maintainers about a bug on some extended object and got not much help of something like "yeah, I know about it but I don't have time to work on it".

I love the work Hans did with Pd extended, and still use it, but I'm critic on how many libraries and objects are badly maintained, with bugs and not that good documentation. There are also many redundanct objects. So can't say it's such a great package of externals... 

I know there are a few libraries I can't live without. Like, from the top of my head there are: zexy, iemlib, cyclone... I'd be kinda done with these few libraries.

In the scenario context we're discussing - of a repository of working libraries - if whoever made a library that was on the repository and, for some reason, it stopped working, I guess the creator should care to maintain it. but if he doesn't, if it's open source and everything, maybe someone else who cares would care to step in and deal with it.

But I have the idea that if a library is working fine as an external in vanilla, it should normally keep working as such. And Miller is here waving . And well, if it doesn't and nobody cares. Then it is crossed out of the repository. Simple as that...

So, it's a whole different paradigm. It's not about building and releasing a new distro. It's not about telling Miller what he should do with Vanilla. And it should be pretty simple as I see it. Moreover, I could manifest the opinion that that's the easy way and how it should be - a list of plugins, nicely organised somewhere, for people to download and use it. 

And no need for that much diplomacy. I think it should be open and free. If people make some libraries and wanna to put it on the repository, just let'em do it.

Well, that's my two cents

Cheers

2014-12-17 18:08 GMT-02:00 Jonathan Wilkes <jancsika@yahoo.com>:

Who is going to replace Hans?

Here's an incomplete list of the responsibilities such a person would have:

* all the technical responsibilities of maintaining releasing software (whether that software is a collection of libraries or a full distro of Pd, the work required is still comparable)

* maintaining the abandoned libs that users still need

* responding to requests from new developers in a timely manner

* being a leader.  For example, when someone asks a question whether doing X is feasible, you would give a clear and definitive answer based on where you think the project should go

* being a diplomat.  After someone has done the work you encouraged them to do and Miller says he wants to take another decade to think of a better solution, you have to find a compromise that doesn't discourage the development effort (and create yet another unmaintained lib or patch/plugin for Vanilla)

* generally encouraging development efforts of developers with various styles of communication and expectations for the software

* working with developers like me who have essentially given up on trying to get improvements into Pd Vanilla.  (But I am happy to work with anyone willing to do all this work)

-Jonathan

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