On Sun, Jul 8, 2012 at 1:46 AM, Stewart, Robert <Robert.Stewart@sig.com> wrote:
Boost does not appear to have a policy for maintainers that go missing in action.
We have this policy, which is half of the equation:
http://www.boost.org/development/submissions.html#Lifecycle
I think someone (maybe steering committe) should come up with some policy.
This sounded awfully familiar, so I checked. I'm supposed to write up something like the following and post it to the web site:
"When a Boost library maintainer becomes unresponsive, the following process provides a means to take over maintenance:
"1. Identify the maintainer of the code that is languishing. "2. Appeal to the maintainer, by name, in a properly targeted message to the developer's list (with the right '[library]' tag in the subject line). "3. Bump the message a time or two over the course of a month or so. "4. Try contacting the maintainer directly yourself or through others on the developer's list. "5. Declare the library to have no maintainer on the developer's list and volunteer to be the new maintainer. "6. Assume maintenance of the library if there are no objections raised on the developer's list within two weeks."
This is certainly a good start and I welcome any input you may have before I post it. At any rate, step 4 has worked, though Jeff has not yet responded on-list.
Shouldn't we try to move to team maintenance for most if not all libs? Having only one (or two) people responsible for widely used libraries doesn't seem ideal. I think a lot of people would be willing to help out. -- Olaf