Ian leaving and the glorious future

[Duncan Coutts]

On Fri, 2013-08-02 at 18:32 +0000, Simon Peyton-Jones wrote:
> Dear ghc-dev friends,
> 
> Ian has now officially left Well Typed, so there now isn't anyone
> whose day job it is to respond to GHC bug mail, Trac tickets etc.
> Well Typed are hiring, and there will be someone new in due course,
> but until then there will be a hiatus.

I've got a little follow-up to Simon's announcement

http://www.well-typed.com/blog/81

The gist is that as Simon says, we are recruiting (application deadline
was 10 days ago), but also that our colleague Edsko is actually working
on GHC at least during this interim period. He started on that quietly a
week or so ago. Of course it takes time to get up to speed, but you're
welcome to grab him to discuss issues. He is also looking at the trac.

We'll keep you all informed as soon as we know exactly who will be
picking up the ghc maintenance. It will actually be two people!

We also second everything Simon says about community involvement, and
we'll play our part with that.

Duncan

> In general, this is part of what I see as a long, slow movement: as
> time goes on, GHC is becoming more and more public property.  Simon
> M's move to Facebook is another part of that movement.  Increasingly,
> GHC is going to rely more on the community to maintain and develop it,
> and less on GHC HQ.  And when I say "the community", I think firstly
> of the ghc-devs list :-).
> 
> If the community is to be expected to do more of the work, they should
> also get more influence about decisions.  I don't think there's any
> rush, but I'm open to forming a GHC steering committee (if you would
> like) to broaden the sense of "ownership".
> 
> Don't worry: I'm not bowing out!  But I am very much trying to
> encourage you to feel that GHC is *your* compiler, not just SPJ/SM's
> compiler that you can contribute to.    I'm open to suggestions for
> how best to nurture broad participation.
> 
> And meanwhile, in the current hiatus, any support that any of you can
> give is hugely welcome!
> 
> Thanks.
> 
> Simon

-- 
Duncan Coutts, Haskell Consultant
Well-Typed LLP, http://www.well-typed.com/