On Mon, 26 Sep 2005 17:58:51 +0100, Douglas Gregor <doug.gregor@gmail.com> wrote:
Review manages are long-time, established members of the Boost community and are almost exclusively authors of existing Boost libraries. They are implicitly trusted by the Boost community to make sound decisions.
Ultimately it seems that the quality of Boost rests on the experience of its library authors and reviewers, so how does an observer assess that?
Given that all library authors and reviewers are volunteers, I'm not sure how we can assess them as a group.
Thanks for the clarification on Review Managers. Where I am coming from is that if you are following an ISO9001-style quality system then you (I) need to assess off the shelf (OTS) software before using it. This includes commercial, shrink-wrapped and open source software. To do this you would assess the company/organisation producing the software as well as the softare. In a commercial company you might expect there to be training records that show that a person is suitably trained and experienced to do their job (you can debate whether training records actually show this or not). I guess the ideal would be if the biographies of Boost People included more about technical experience and contribution to Boost (given that this is one of your criteria for being a Review Manager). I accept that people may not want to provide this information. How about a citations page that lists glowing references to Boost? The Who's Using Boost page also backs up the wide use and acceptance of Boost. I hope it's clear that I'm _not_ questioning the quality of Boost. I am just musing how I would prove to a Food and Drug Administration Inspector that Boost is indeed "...one of the most highly regarded and expertly designed C++ library projects in the world". Richard