So long, and thanks for all the fish!

Erik Quaeghebeur wrote:
> I wish you interesting new opportunities.
> Hope to see you around.
> Erik

Yeah, what Erik said!

Alvin in AZ

On Tue, 20 May 2008 14:55:15 -0700, Mark Crispin wrote:

> I, along with several dozen other co-workers, was laid off today.
>
> I would like to think that IMAP and Pine communities for nearly two
> decades. You've all been wonderful to work with.
>
> I don't know who will take over UW imapd, but some members of the Alpine
> development team survived the layoffs. You can contact them at
> alpine-contact@u.washington.edu.
>
> Thanks to all of you!

Keep us posted. I don't doubt the best people will race to snap
you up -- if only because so many of us know that anything youss guyss in
general, and you in particular, may do is sure to be supremely excellent.

--
Beartooth Paganus, Staffwright, Sciurivore
What do they know of country, who only country know?

On Tue, 20 May 2008, Mark Crispin wrote in comp.mail.imap and...:

> I, along with several dozen other co-workers, was laid off today.
>
> I would like to think that IMAP and Pine communities for nearly two decades.
> You've all been wonderful to work with.
>
> I don't know who will take over UW imapd, but some members of the Alpine
> development team survived the layoffs. You can contact them at
> alpine-contact@u.washington.edu.
>
> Thanks to all of you!

Mark,

Wow, I do not check the group in a few days and I come back to all kinds
of happenings. Thank you for your help over the years! Good luck to you
in your future career path.

John

On Tue, 20 May 2008, Mark Crispin wrote:

> I, along with several dozen other co-workers, was laid off today.
>
> I would like to think that IMAP and Pine communities for nearly two decades.
> You've all been wonderful to work with.
>
> I don't know who will take over UW imapd, but some members of the Alpine
> development team survived the layoffs. You can contact them at
> alpine-contact@u.washington.edu.
>
> Thanks to all of you!
>
> -- Mark --
>
This is very troubling to me. You *ARE* the author of IMAP... you have done so much for Internet
email over the years... and you were LAID OFF? A bad message on corporate culture. Get rid of the
true contributors and intellectuals... hire trainees instead. really depressing. i have followed
your posts for years... Washington edu redefines Pine to Alpine - and then eliminates the very
leaders of that movement. I do wish you the very best. And I do admire also that you would tell
us.. thank you for that. And I wish the very best for you. Maybe this will be a career milestone to
future greatness. I had long felt that your talents exceeded your role. And I hope you stay in
touch with this group.
best regards,
david
--
-----------------------------------
david dskirk@usa.net

On Tue, 20 May 2008 14:55:15 -0700, Mark Crispin wrote:

> I, along with several dozen other co-workers, was laid off today.
[...]

Given that opprobrious fact, and this statement :

===== ===== ===== =====
> Pine is no longer under active development. Consider evaluating its >
successor, Alpine, which supports all of Pine's functionality and more.
===== ===== ===== =====

which is still at http://www.washington.edu/pine/ -- given both, is it
not a legitimate topic for this group to ask, "What of Alpine, then?"

After eighteen years of the glory Pine and Alpine have reflected
on UW, does it now plan to drop both, and their literally millions of
users, flat? Will any source of operating systems spring into the breach,
if breach there be??

Will UW's sister school WSU stop making Cougar Gold cheese?

Has the San Andreas fault propagated itself all the way up the
Idaho border, prefatory to the whole West Coast falling off and drifting
out to sea, instead of the East as so many used to wish?

Which would be worse?

Seriously, isn't anything known, after over two months? Can it
not be told here? If not here, where? If not now, when?

--
Beartooth Implacable, PhD, Neo-Redneck Linux Convert
What do they know of computers, who only computers know?

We will have at least one more release within the next couple weeks,
probably called Alpine 2.0. It will include the source for Web Alpine 2.0,
which was not included as part of Alpine 1.10.

After that, we plan to continue serving as the primary host for Alpine
source, but shift our effort from direct development into more of a
consultation and coordination role to help integrate contributions from
the community.

University of Washington Alpine team

Steve Hubert <hubert@washington.edu> writes:

>We will have at least one more release within the next couple weeks,
>probably called Alpine 2.0. It will include the source for Web Alpine 2.0,
>which was not included as part of Alpine 1.10.

>After that, we plan to continue serving as the primary host for Alpine
>source, but shift our effort from direct development into more of a
>consultation and coordination role to help integrate contributions from
>the community.

Uh, that sounds like a plan to simply discontinue Pine/Alpine. Community
involvelement cannot simply be switched on at will. You developed pine in a
semi-proprietary fashion for many years which probably meant that you did
not develope a strong community team. That cannot simply be called into
action at a whim on your part. Either the community has to be involved from
day one ( a la the kernel of linux) or someone has to take th lead and
gradually grow that involvement. You cannot simply decide-- we are tired,
lets hand it over to the community.

Pine is a complex piece of code. Noone knows it terribly well, and to
support it someone needs to know it well.



>University of Washington Alpine team

> Steve Hubert <hubert@washington.edu> writes:
>
>> We will have at least one more release within the next couple weeks,
>> probably called Alpine 2.0. It will include the source for Web Alpine 2.0,
>> which was not included as part of Alpine 1.10.
>
>> After that, we plan to continue serving as the primary host for Alpine
>> source, but shift our effort from direct development into more of a
>> consultation and coordination role to help integrate contributions from
>> the community.

On Tue, 5 Aug 2008, Unruh wrote:
>
> Uh, that sounds like a plan to simply discontinue Pine/Alpine. Community
> involvelement cannot simply be switched on at will. You developed pine in a
> semi-proprietary fashion for many years which probably meant that you did
> not develope a strong community team. That cannot simply be called into
> action at a whim on your part. Either the community has to be involved from
> day one ( a la the kernel of linux) or someone has to take th lead and
> gradually grow that involvement. You cannot simply decide-- we are tired,
> lets hand it over to the community.
>
> Pine is a complex piece of code. Noone knows it terribly well, and to
> support it someone needs to know it well.

I would not be so pessimistic. The code is there, UW would still provide
some structure, lots of computer-knowledgeable people use (al)pine, some
somewhat famous (like Mr Torvalds of the linux kernel) that could perhaps
be persuaded to make publicity for the cause of keeping alpine fit.

Erik

Erik Quaeghebeur <equaeghe@nospammail.net> writes:

>> Steve Hubert <hubert@washington.edu> writes:
>>
>>> We will have at least one more release within the next couple weeks,
>>> probably called Alpine 2.0. It will include the source for Web Alpine 2.0,
>>> which was not included as part of Alpine 1.10.
>>
>>> After that, we plan to continue serving as the primary host for Alpine
>>> source, but shift our effort from direct development into more of a
>>> consultation and coordination role to help integrate contributions from
>>> the community.

>On Tue, 5 Aug 2008, Unruh wrote:
>>
>> Uh, that sounds like a plan to simply discontinue Pine/Alpine. Community
>> involvelement cannot simply be switched on at will. You developed pine in a
>> semi-proprietary fashion for many years which probably meant that you did
>> not develope a strong community team. That cannot simply be called into
>> action at a whim on your part. Either the community has to be involved from
>> day one ( a la the kernel of linux) or someone has to take th lead and
>> gradually grow that involvement. You cannot simply decide-- we are tired,
>> lets hand it over to the community.
>>
>> Pine is a complex piece of code. Noone knows it terribly well, and to
>> support it someone needs to know it well.

>I would not be so pessimistic. The code is there, UW would still provide
>some structure, lots of computer-knowledgeable people use (al)pine, some
>somewhat famous (like Mr Torvalds of the linux kernel) that could perhaps
>be persuaded to make publicity for the cause of keeping alpine fit.

Linus has his hands full with the kernel. And just because a programmer is
good does not mean that they can take someone else's code, figure out how
it works and start altering it without a huge investment in time. I have
not looked at the code so have no idea how well the source code is documented.
If documented to the same standard as most of the stuff in the kernel it
would be a month long job I suspect. You need the people who understand the
code well to be around to guide the people trying to get up to speed even
if it is well documented. If it is not, forget it. To simply dump a
codebase onto the community without preparation is to relegate the code to
oblivion.



>Erik

In <7jpmk.4818$nu6.3141@edtnps83> Unruh:

[Snip...]

> people who understand the code well

Well, there's always Mark Crispin. Oh, wait...

--
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