[PythonCAD] Post R36 plans

[Art Haas]

Hi.

I made the thirty-sixth release about two weeks ago, then picked up some
contract work which kept me busy. I'd meant to mail the list sooner with
a post-release note.

It took far too long between the thirty-fifth and thirty-sixth release,
and I'd like to avoid that happening again. There were a couple of
months where I got nothing accomplished, and I had a stretch of time
doing contract work which kept me busy but not with PythonCAD. It is
clear to me that more developers are needed to keep the project moving
at a decent pace and avoid long delays between releases. This note,
then, can be considered somewhat a 'call-for-help' note as well as a
'call-for-suggestions' as to what I can do to help encourage more people
to regularly contribute to PythonCAD development.

One thing I want to do, and I've said it before, is to replace the
centralized Subversion repository with a distributed SCM. I'm 99.999%
certain it will be git, as I use git for building the Linux kernel and
retrieving code from a variety of projects. One drawback to git is there
is not a native Windows client right now. Aside from the recent work
done to store the preferences in the APPDATA directory common to other
Windows programs I hear next to nothing from Windows users and don't
regularly get patches from them so I'm guessing they get PythonCAD via
the tarball releases and not Subversion.

Switching to a distributed SCM will hopefully encourage more developers
to invest some time with PythonCAD as their local copy of the tree will
be entirely theirs to play with - commit, delete, modify, etc. The
current centralized model requires people to send me patches, wait for
me to commit them, and then push my tree out. While I feel that this
model has worked well enough at the start of the project, it is time to
change and the availability of distributed open-source SCM packages
like git make a transition possible. I'll e-mail the list more info
regarding my plans and efforts shortly.

Please feel free to add your comments about what can be done to help
bring more developers into PythonCAD.

Art
-- 
Man once surrendering his reason, has no remaining guard against absurdities
the most monstrous, and like a ship without rudder, is the sport of every wind.

-Thomas Jefferson to James Smith, 1822