It's to a "test balloon" if you have a plan to mandate it and will be announcing that. Unless I suppose enough backlash will cause you to cancel the plan.
It's literally a test of how people will react, so yes, finding out if people will react negatively would be exactly the point of doing the test in the first place. Would you prefer that they don't publicize what their follow-up plans would be to try to make it harder to criticize the plans? If you're against the plan, I'm pretty sure that's the exact type of feedback they're looking for, so it would make more sense to tell them that directly if it actually affects you rather than making a passive-aggressive comment they'll likely never read on an unrelated forum.
What's there to test? It was obvious that the reaction would be overwhelmingly negative, so that's definitely not something they would care about. What else?
Is the reaction overwhelmingly negative? I haven’t read all of the emails but they seemed basically neutral or positive to me. Could you link me to some extremely negative ones, I’m curious.
Ah, so the people whose opinions they care about is going to be git contributors, not random Twitter users (some of whom can literally make money from outrage farming). The folks who actually do the work.
If they’re running the project with a Linus-type approach, they won’t consider backlash to be interesting or relevant, unless it is accompanied by specific statements of impact. Generic examples for any language to explain why:
> How dare you! I’m going to boycott git!!
Self-identified as irrelevant (objector will not be using git); no reply necessary, expect a permaban.
> I don’t want to install language X to build and run git.
Most users do not build git from source. Since no case is made why this is relevant beyond personal preference, it will likely be ignored.
> Adopting language X might inhibit community participation.
This argument has almost certainly already been considered. Without a specific reason beyond the possibility, such unsupported objections will not lead to new considerations, especially if raised by someone who is not a regular contributor.
> Language X isn’t fully-featured on platform Y.
Response will depend on whether the Git project decides to support platform Y or not, whether the missing features are likely to affect Git uses, etc. Since no case is provided about platform Y’s usage, it’ll be up to the Git team to investigate (or not) before deciding
> Language X will prevent Git from being deployed on platform Z, which affects W installations based on telemetry and recent package downloads, due to incompatibility Y.
This would be guaranteed to be evaluated, but the outcome could be anywhere from “X will be dropped” to “Y will be patched” to “Z will not be supported”.
If you're looking for reasons to ignore criticism like this then you were never interested in anything other than an affirmative nod and pat on the back in the first place.
> then you were never interested in anything other than an affirmative
I disagree. Perhaps these roguelike examples will clarify.
You can Raise Concerns towards the project. The project is mired in your concerns! The project loses 5 HP extricating itself from the muck! The project moves forward. --more--
This indicates that the project considered the concern raised and chose not to halt work over it; those 5 HP who might be impacted should continue planning for that impact. Most likely, in Git's case, that's either 'the good of the project outweighed the impact to the few' and/or 'no one is willing to commit developer/maintainer hours to us for that platform so we're bailing on it'. I haven't uncovered any evidence that they tend to lie about project motivations, and certainly I would not classify the project founder as 'uncomfortable sharing unpalatable views', so I have no evidence supporting the accusation that the Git project might refuse to consider a supported claim that has not already been evaluated.
You cast Unsupported Claims towards the project. The project's shield reflects them! You take 5 HP of Reasoning damage! The project moves forward. --more--
A politely-phrased objection is meaningless if it isn't backed by reasoning that can be considered and either accepted or rejected by a project. People do try, but disappointingly, human beings are sometimes vulnerable to politeness attacks of this sort. I can assert with near-perfect certainty that Git is not vulnerable to polite but unsupported objections.
You cast Hostile Tirade towards the project. The project casts Protection from Hostility! Your tirade has no effect. You blink away! --more--
Everyone is looking to ignore this kind of criticism. The roguelike joke makes it especially clear that the criticism was not considered solely due to how it was presented, rather than by whatever merits it may have. Doesn't matter how substantive the claims, being mean typically guarantees both disregard and eviction from the chosen battlefield.
ps. Note that in some cases, the project will abandon the requested outcome. Human beings have a certain percentage chance of sacrificing personal gain to 'reward' hostility with an outcome that is maximally undesirable to those being hostile. This can result in ending support for platforms that might otherwise have remained support, or even outright shutdown of an entire project. See also: Fez 2, libxslt, et al.
pps. None of these outcomes guarantee that they will change course, even if a perfectly-supported and politely-presented argument is made and considered. None of these outcomes guarantee that one will receive a considered rejection rather than a blind rejection, either. There is no Konami code, but one thing is certain: one cannot win an boss fight by throwing the controller at the TV.
