DMOTE pull discussion

[veikman]

Hi Tom. Thank you for the awesome keyboard design.

I forked your repository 498 commits ago, eventually turning it into a CAD application for multiple designs. Although the changes in my fork are large, both in scope and volume, I have preserved upstream compatibility by replicating the Dactyl-ManuForm design in the new application, making it the default build target.

Of the following two pictures, one is your original design, and one is its imitation as a product of my fork.

The visible differences are intended as enhancements, or sacrifices without practical impact.

I believe the changes to the application are useful to your users. My fork solves #26 and #19 for free. It probably solves #23 too, and makes it easier to solve problems like #42, because it has a declarative configuration layer in YAML where the size of each key is controlled in isolation from source code. This configuration layer eliminates the need for fragile diff-patching to get different matrix sizes.

The license has not changed.

I therefore propose a merge. With your permission, I’ll send a pull request for the whole thing.

There are reasons why you might not want this. For example:

• There are other active forks.
• My fork does not have the little hooks for wires, which I guess are not heavily used. This is the only feature loss I am aware of.
• My fork has removed your build-guide document (part of the readme), which I would be happy to restore to its former glory as a separate file.

Let’s discuss it. Is there anything you would want before considering a PR? Is it out of the question?

[tshort]

Hi Viktor. Wow, that's so cool. If I had 3D printer access, it'd be fun to try some of your unique designs. A declarative syntax is a great idea, too.

I probably won't consider a PR.

Repositories for keyboard designs and other physical objects are odd. There's no easy way to verify designs or changes. I'm also not building more variations (my existing keyboard is "good enough"). So, basically, this repo is stagnant.

What I should do is put a message like the following at the top of the README in this repository:

---

This repository is not being updated. Other forks are available with updates and improvements. See the following:

• Viktor Eikman--Includes a declarative configuration layer in YAML. This allows a wide range of customizations and interesting keyboard designs. This fixes a number of issues with the current dactyl-manuform design.

... list other forks ...

---

Plus, you deserve all the credit for your improvements and interesting ideas.

[veikman]

Thank you Tom, that decision is perfectly understandable. The list you propose, of notable third-generation projects, would surely be useful to your fans. I suggest you include these two, as well as myself:

• Ibnu Daru Aji – a web application!
• Joshua Shreve – Python (cadquery) instead of Clojure.

They’re quite impressive!