Re: [boost] A bike shed (any colour will do) on greener grass...

Subject: Re: [boost] A bike shed (any colour will do) on greener grass...
From: Niall Douglas (s_sourceforge_at_[hidden])
Date: 2013-10-31 12:20:03

On 31 Oct 2013 at 2:08, Ahmed Charles wrote:

> I'm personally on the fence about this policy. I see some library
> authors that are responsive and reasonable with their library and I
> wouldn't want to disenfranchise them one bit. But I also see that it can
> create an 'old guard' sort of situation that benefits no one. With power
> should come responsibility and there should be a mechanism that ensures
> that libraries that stagnate are given new maintainers. I understand
> that there is a shortage of people signing up to maintain libraries, but
> I think at least part of that is due to the impression that libraries
> are only ever 'pried from the hands of their dead maintainers'. 

I am personally strongly in favour of libraries getting deprecated 
and removed from releases if they are not maintained - let's say no 
bug fixes by its maintainer in two major release cycles adds them to 
the list of soon to be deprecated libraries, and no bug fixes by its 
maintainer in three major release cycles has them removed from Boost 
central and put into an attic. That encourages new maintainers to 
step forwards, and old maintainers to give up their control if they 
can't keep up due to life commitments.

It would require some political bravery from the SC though, as users 
will get upset. I would also personally count lack of adding direct 
C++11 support as equal to lack of bug fixing, but I appreciate that 
will be controversial (what is C++11 support anyway???) :)

Niall

-- 
Currently unemployed and looking for work.
Work Portfolio: http://careers.stackoverflow.com/nialldouglas/