Re: [boost] RFC: Community maintained libraries

Subject: Re: [boost] RFC: Community maintained libraries
From: Ahmed Charles (acharles_at_[hidden])
Date: 2013-12-10 05:28:05

> 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.