[Distutils] a plea for backward-compatibility / smooth transitions

[Donald Stufft]

On Aug 2, 2013, at 4:28 PM, PJ Eby <pje at telecommunity.com> wrote:

> I also want to just throw in one extra piece of information for you
> and anybody else reading this: 99% of "stop energy" doesn't happen
> because people actively want to prevent progress or frustrate other
> people.  It simply happens when people notice a problem but don't have
> as much personal stake in your goal as they do in not experiencing the
> problem they will experience (or perceive they will), from the
> proposed change.

One of the biggest things I viewed as stop energy was how impossible
it seemed to get a SSL certificate that was trusted in most major browsers
to be used on PyPI. There was never any reason given that we couldn't
move to one, just simply "we already have a certificate" without addressing
the reasons I was trying to get a different one.

Beyond that it was other random proposals that it felt like people put in
the minimal amount of effort in order to find a reason to say no to it. Then
if I addressed that particular concern, they'd again seem to put in the minimal
amount of effort to find a reason to say no. It felt like the goal posts were just
constantly being moved to slightly further away each time.

That sort of behavior is mostly what I mean by "stop energy". It's entirely
frustrating and it feels like it's entire purpose is to dissuade someone from
changing the status quo, wether that was the intention or not.

Everything else you said has been noted :)


-----------------
Donald Stufft
PGP: 0x6E3CBCE93372DCFA // 7C6B 7C5D 5E2B 6356 A926 F04F 6E3C BCE9 3372 DCFA

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