Re: [boost] RFC: Community maintained libraries

Subject: Re: [boost] RFC: Community maintained libraries
From: Beman Dawes (bdawes_at_[hidden])
Date: 2013-12-11 12:16:55

On Tue, Dec 10, 2013 at 5:28 AM, Ahmed Charles <acharles_at_[hidden]> wrote:

>
>
> > Date: Wed, 4 Dec 2013 09:47:52 -0500
> > From: bdawes_at_[hidden]
> > To: boost_at_[hidden]
> > Subject: [boost] RFC: Community maintained libraries
> >
> > Boost libraries have always been maintained by an individual maintainer,
> or
> > perhaps a small number of individuals. That works very well most of the
> > time, and there is no need to change that approach for libraries that
> > continue to have active maintainers.
> >
> > Where we have a problem is libraries that don't have active maintainers.
> > Someone else has to step in from time-to-time to apply patches and
> perform
> > other routine maintenance. That was easy to do for our svn repo because
> > write permissions were global.
> >
> > GitHub gives us some additional tools; write permissions are given at the
> > Team level, and a team can have permissions across multiple specific
> > repositories.
> >
> > Strawman Proposal
> > -------------------------
> >
> > For Boost libraries where there is no library maintainer available, turn
> > maintenance over to a "Community" team. Initially the team members would
> be
> > volunteers who are already known as experienced maintainers or patch
> > submitters. New volunteers for team membership would establish themselves
> > by submitting patches and pull requests. At least to get things started,
> > the release managers could OK requests for team membership.
> >
> > We might seed the list of libraries being community maintained by
> > contacting some current maintainers who have not been active for years.
> If
> > we can't even contact the maintainer, that's an indication the library
> is a
> > candidate for community maintenance. Patch submitters who haven't gotten
> > any action can request a library be added to community maintenance. At
> > least to get things started, the release managers could OK requests for
> > community maintenance.
> >
> > Comments?
>
> I support this idea. I think the biggest issue with boost getting people
> involved is perception, as the rest of this thread seems to attest to and
> having an official policy like this would definitely be a step toward
> changing that perception.
>

I've now made a formal proposal to the steering committee, incorporating
ideas from this discussion.

Thanks to everyone who participated!

--Beman