I guess the point is that Nim's creator brought up seemingly unrelated, pointless rants on political matters against a genuinely organizational question? This is not exactly a civil discourse in any definitions, especially considering the context that Araq is supposed to be the most representative figure of the community.
Charitably reading his comment, I think he sees questions about a "foundation", "organization", etc as the thin edge of a wedge for people with political agendas.
As a response to "Is there a Nim foundation?" it can be interpreted as "No, and there won't be, and this is why..."
Having said that, I like Nim, but have advised against using it in important projects for exactly this issue: it has bus factor 1 (ref https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bus_factor ).
No it's not a bus factor of 1. Why would you think that? If you don't know why would you talk? There is at least another full time compiler dev. And a stream of contributors.
I believe it, but I'd be happy to be wrong. Here is my reasoning:
My concern is leadership, not technical ability per se. There are a number of people capable of maintaining Nim or advancing it (off the top of my head I can think of 6). The important question is, _will they?_ Has anyone involved made commitments about what they'd do? Has any such commitment been accepted by the rest of the community? Maybe I've missed such statements, but Araq's comment makes me think there just aren't any such plans.
If Araq is hit by a bus, what _will_ happen? I could think of a number of scenarios that seem _possible_ to me, some good, some bad, the problem is that I don't know which if any it would be. For example, maybe diverse contributors organize and take over the project, maybe just contributors from status take over, maybe it's forked repeatedly and the community fragments, maybe it putters along with just bug fixes, maybe it never sees another release, maybe Araq has it in his will that no one can ever use Nim again, etc.
Is there anyone we _know_ would take over for Araq? Do we have a a "Vicearaq"? If not, then I believe a bus factor of 1 is justified.
To be clear, I like Nim a lot and I introduce it to other devs given half a chance, but I don't feel comfortable betting other people's jobs on it at this time. Maybe it's just that Elm has made me wary of BDFLs and I should be less paranoid.
Typing that out is making me re-evaluate my position.
I made my judgement a few years ago, when the technical bus factor might have legitimately been 1, but there are a lot more people involved now, and some of them may have sufficient motivation to maintain Nim themselves rather than just move off of it ASAP. I'm still not sure exactly how it would shake out, but I think Nim would survive the absence of Araq, at least for a time.
Sorry for my earlier comment. I can't edit it anymore, but I will not make it again.
