The CMake issue has been around for years and hasn't been able to progress primarily because "obviously biased" vocal minorities were holding it back with threats.
Really. Just as my blood pressure was considering the option of going back to normal. Suppose for the sake of argument that we all agree that we want Boost to move to CMake. We're here - Boost works, but is Boost.Build-based - and we want to move there - Boost works and is CMake-based. There are two ways to do it. The first one is a gradual transition. We currently have two pieces of critical infrastructure reliant on Boost.Build - the test system and the build/install procedure. (Three actually if we include the doc build.) How would a gradual transition work? For the testing part, obviously, we keep the Boost.Build testing operational and start building a parallel test infrastructure based on CMake/CTest. Libraries that want to be tested via b2 supply test/Jamfile, libraries that want to be tested via CTest supply... test/CMakeLists.txt, for instance. Libraries that supply neither aren't tested by either. For the building part, we start supplying a secondary way to build and install Boost, alongside the existing one. The second possibility is a sudden jump. We move, for both testing and building, to CMake at once. How would this be best handled? By building the CMake infrastructure on a branch until it's ready for the switch. Organizationally speaking, what needed to be done? First, we choose which scenario we prefer. Second, the SC appoints a person in charge of realizing the plan. If gradual, he sets off to work with the results immediately appearing in Boost as libraries are picked up by the CMake test/build infrastructure one by one. If sudden, he sets off to work on his branch. When ready, the SC votes on the switch. So far I have left unspoken something that everyone should have picked up - the role of Rene in all this. It's patently obvious that a gradual transition would be much (much!) harder without him around, so we've pretty much ruled that possibility out now. This was, in my opinion, completely unnecessary. Or was it?
The CMake issue has been around for years and hasn't been able to progress primarily because "obviously biased" vocal minorities were holding it back with threats.
To put it bluntly, did the glorious CMake transition HAVE to start with killing the workhorse and driving away the rider who got us where we are? And even if some of you believe that the answer to this question is "yes, it did have", can you not at least bring yourselves to not state that openly? Boost.Build and Rene have done a lot for the C++ community. Unless and until you can match this track record...