BLOG ON CAMLCITY.ORG: Gerd

Sorry! - by Gerd Stolpmann, 2013-07-22

Unfortunately, it is no longer possible for me to run the GODI distribution. GODI will not upgrade to OCaml 4.01 once it is out, and it will shut down the public service in the course of September 2013.

This website, camlcity.org, will remain up, but with reduced content. Existing GODI installations can be continued to be used, but upgrades or bugfixes will not be available when GODI is off.

Although there are still a lot of GODI users, it is unavoidable to shut GODI down due to lack of supporters, especially package developers. I was more or less alone in the past months, and my time contingent will not allow it to do the upgrade to OCaml 4.01 alone (when it is released).

Also, there was a lot of noise about a competing packaging system for OCaml in the past weeks: OPAM. Apparently, it got a lot of attention both from individuals and from organizations. As I see it, the OCaml community is too small to support two systems, and so in some sense GODI is displaced by OPAM.

The sad part is that OPAM is only clearly better in one point, namely in interacting with the community (via Github). In times where social networks are worth billions this is probably the striking point. It doesn't matter that OPAM lacks some features GODI has. So there is some loss of functionality for the community (partly difficult to replace, like GODI's support for Windows).

If somebody wants to take over GODI, please do so. The source code is still available as well as the package directories. Maybe it is sufficient to move the repository to a public place and to redesign the package release process to give GODI a restart.

Hoorn (NL), the 22nd July 2013,

Gerd Stolpmann