Re: [boost] 5 Observations - My experience with the boost libraries

Subject: Re: [boost] 5 Observations - My experience with the boost libraries
From: Jim Bosch (talljimbo_at_[hidden])
Date: 2010-03-24 15:15:34

On Wed, 2010-03-24 at 11:57 -0700, Emil Dotchevski wrote:
> On Wed, Mar 24, 2010 at 11:26 AM, Edward Diener <eldiener_at_[hidden]> wrote:
> > That's why I am suggesting that Boost create some sort of policy so that
> > maintenance of an actively used Boost library be transferred to others
> > whenever the original library author(s) no longer wish to maintain the
> > library.
> 
> Why do we need an official policy if someone has to volunteer anyway?
> It's not like there's an army of volunteers and we have to be careful
> to pick the right candidate. :)

It isn't always clear to what extent an original maintainer is still
actively supporting a library, especially because tickets will still
automatically get assigned to them in trac.  Sometimes they'll still fix
the occasional bug, but the rest of the TODO list will just sit there,
and if they had a way to say "if anyone else would like to take this
over, I'm mostly working on other things", it might encourage
possibly-qualified list-lurkers (like me!) to volunteer more, even if
it's just default ownership of reported problems.

I don't know how formal it should be, but I think having a way for a
maintainer to admit that they've mostly moved on might be a good thing.

Jim Bosch