Re: [boost] Boost is supposed to serve *the entire C++ community; it isn't Boost's goal to serve Boost's community*

Subject: Re: [boost] Boost is supposed to serve *the entire C++ community; it isn't Boost's goal to serve Boost's community*
From: M.A. van den Berg (thijs_at_[hidden])
Date: 2016-05-19 12:01:54

> On 19 May 2016, at 17:36, Robert Ramey <ramey_at_[hidden]> wrote:
> 
> 
> Boost as from day one had the policy that any library submitted should be compatible with the latest C++ standard. Any library author is free to build his library with C++14 only.
> 

This is why I think the monolithic release is no longer a good format, most is not a coherent set of libraries that are all usable from a single users perspective and most users only need a couple libraries. Various attempts have been proposed to reduce dependencies inside boost with the aim to make libraries separately downloadable/releasable. 

Moving to git was a big change, but in general it’s very difficult to get consensus on *any* change for the better (for some at least). Why is it so difficult to introduce any change? Can’t we give library maintainers some parallel optionalities and see what will evolve out of it -or not-: allow to formally support aditional build systems, other documentation systems, allow different types of release schedules:  standalone and separately downloadable headers only libraries that have zero dependencies.