On Mon, May 12, 2014 at 9:05 PM, Beman Dawes <bdawes@acm.org> wrote:

IMO it should be a Boost policy that anyone who submits a pull request deserves a response within a reasonable period of time.

*What is a "response"?*

GitHub pull requests have a "Comment" mechanism, so that's the best mechanism as it ensures reaching the submitter even they don't read the developer list. We also need to delineate some common responses, but that can wait until the overall policy is agreed upon.

*What is a "reasonable period of time"?*

This may be a bit of a bike shed discussion since whatever we start with may need adjustment based on experience. Would two weeks be a good starting point?

Sounds ok.

*Who should step in if there is no response from the library maintainer?*

The Community Maintenance Team IMO is the logical choice. A pull request that does not receive a timely response may be an early warning sign that the library involved does not have an active maintainer. The CMT folks are interested maintenance and already have processes to review pull requests. This would be an expansion of their mandate, and details need to be worked out such as what happens if the library maintainer is just busy at the moment.

This implies that CMT has full access to all libraries, right?

*What should the pull submitter do if there is no response within the reasonable period of time?* Send an email to the CMT pointing to the open pull request.

(It would be nice if the submitter didn't have to do anything, but that implies the ability to monitor open pull requests. See "[GitHub] List open pull requests for all libraries?")

Comments?

I think this is a good idea. I also would extend the policy to Trac tickets as well since we still use them (and for some libraries they are the primary feedback system).