Re: [boost] Library Maintainence - was 5 Observations ....

Subject: Re: [boost] Library Maintainence - was 5 Observations ....
From: Gennadiy Rozental (rogeeff_at_[hidden])
Date: 2010-03-25 12:29:54

Robert Ramey <ramey <at> rrsd.com> writes:

> 
> Paul A. Bristow wrote:
> 
> > If the maintainer appears missing (on holiday even), I'd favour
> > quicker patching of bugs, after some discussion seeking agreement -
> > or veto.
> 
> This would be a really bad idea in my opinion - for more than one reason.

I must say I agree with all of the Robert points. With "live" author/maintainer
it should his or her responsibility to accept and/or apply  patches/fixes.

For libraries with no maintainer around we either can obtain "communal"
responsibility - which is not good IMO in  almost all the cases or assign new
maintainer, which might be acceptable but is not ideal IMO. The best approach
IMO is to deprecate library immediately in next release, announce "contest" and
"winner"/volunteer will rewrite library with the same API using the same unit
tests (may or may not use existing implementation). If all the unit tests pass
as a result, I do not see a need even for another review. Library reinstated in
it's rights immediately.

Gennadiy