Proposal: Expanding the CLC

[Ignat Insarov]

Carter's words touched me. Ever neither smart nor silent, I am going to be a
little loud once more.

Being an outside spectator of this venue, a beneficiary _(one of innumerably
many)_ of the work being inconspicuously done by the persons present, and a
skilled developer that potentially may shoulder some of the burden, I would
really like to understand better the structure of power and the philosophy
behind the CLC enterprise — it is not observable, therefore I cannot decide who
to be thankful to and whether my participation is reasonably warranted. I know
there are people that do a huge amount of work continuously fixing a vaguely
defined cloud of _«core»_ packages — but I also know these people have no idea
that I exist, from which it follows that my needs and wishes are respected only
accidentally.

I am voicing this thought for these reasons:

* I am a small scale commercial Haskell user — on its face it classifies me as
  the target audience. I am invested into Haskell but not a luminary like those
  others present here — rather an ordinary person, an average. In some way this
  makes me a representative example.

* I am somewhat altruistic. I contribute open source code, answer questions
  about Haskell and even help people privately without mercantile aims. This
  suggests that I should want to participate in an effort that is beneficial to
  many — being an altruist, I may as well be an effective one.

If there is a person that should be caught in the wave, that is me here. But it
is very evident that I am not. The story is that I asked `\x → (x, x)` to be
given a place in standard libraries — hard to find a more innocent
proposition. As some know, it did not go well. _(This is not an only example but
the most striking.)_ There are several possible explanations.

1. This is meritocracy at work. Haskell collects some of the most gifted
   programmers of the world. A mere mortal cannot possibly suggest any
   beneficial change to `base` or `containers` or `vector` or `cabal-install` —
   in all likelihood it was already considered by the wise council.

2. The philosophy is unclear and undisputed. For example, it was suggested to me
   in private correspondence that the reason the standard libraries are not
   being extended more often is because exporting more names is wrong. This is
   of course as valid a principle as any — but I do not see it being spelled out
   and considered on the basis of evidence. Perhaps the wizards of code are not
   that good at other things, like being clear about their design goals.

3. The power structure is set up in favour of a specific invisible group that
   sets the tune. Recall the story about Stack and Cabal. It had been shown
   clearly that the interests of the community at large are not represented in
   the group of maintainers of Cabal. It is hard to triangulate from the
   distance what exactly went wrong, but on the basis of the meager evidence
   that I can have, the theory is plausible, and evidence keeps adding up.

There is also a question of who selects the libraries to be called _«core»_. For
example, Stack _(and, consequently, half the user base of Haskell)_ depends on
`rio`, and `typed-process` is a superiour replacement for `process`. Should the
_«core»_ include packages vital to half the user base? Should it include a
superiour replacement of a morally obsolete package? Or is it a place where
leviathans of the past come to die? What does it entail for a package to be
considered _«core»_? Does it get included in the standard distribution? What
sort of packages should we like to distribute?

Finally, there is a question of high principles. Haskell can be a pragmatic tool
of the trade or a paragon of elegance, rock-solid or bleeding edge… maybe even
all of it at once, but what does the _management_ want it to be? What do you
folks dream of? What is your ideal? I cannot see any — I only see reactive
efforts to fend off the inevitably approaching future. No one would be inspired
by that. I suspect there are a few people that get paid to contribute to
Haskell. Maybe that should be the main motive instead? Maybe it is time to say
that Haskell is a commercial language maintained by corporate employees? I would
not like to be one but at least expectations would be aligned.

Haskell has not only made me a programmer — it defined me as a person. There is
no other language and no other community like this one. I have reverence. Is it
the same for anyone else here? Or should I, rather, grow up and move on?