Re: Release Schedule issues and doubts

[Gerald Pfeifer <gerald at pfeifer dot com>]

On Sun, 4 Jun 2006, Steven Bosscher wrote:
> Maybe it would help clean up the long list of maintainers who don't 
> actually do any maintenance.  Then, at last, you get a more fair
> picture of the number of reviewers&maintainers that we really have.

Agreed.  It will provide a clearer picture at least, though it won't
solve the problem per se.

(Among maintainers of specific parts, I think there aren't too many
not doing anything about those parts.  Write after approval is another
story -- I guess we have at least a dozen of nominal members -- and
global write does not necessarily reflect reality, either.)

> With power comes responsibility.  If you can't handle the 
> responsibility, you shouldn't accept the power.  Being a maintainer
> of some part of the compiler should be more than just being listed
> in MAINTAINERS.

If think nobody will disagree with the second sentence.

However, we should account for periods of inactivity and reduced
activity caused by personal issues, employer changes, illness,
whatever.

Other projects have a certain period of time (one year, eighteen months)
after which inactive contributors are contacted and eventually purged,
and I think we should do something similar.


Also, when we talk about responsibility, let's be careful not to demand
too much: just because someone is listed as a maintainer for foo, does
not means her or she shall be responsible for each and every patch or
bug in that area.  

Even fixing one bug a month and reviewing one patch a month is an
important contribution.  If this is not sufficient in a specific
area, we need to try and get additional maintainers, not alienate
existing ones.

Gerald