Re: [gentoo-dev] Resignation (was: Project Sunrise resumed)

["Chris Bainbridge" <chris.bainbridge@gmail.com>]

On 02/08/06, Carsten Lohrke <carlo@gentoo.org> wrote:
> On Monday 31 July 2006 04:52, Mike Frysinger wrote:
> > On Sunday 30 July 2006 22:28, Dan Meltzer wrote:
> > > 1) Users can submit patches/ideas to bugs.g.o at whatever frequency
> > > they desire, contributing to gentoo casually.
> >
> > load up your browser and check out how many bugs are assigned
> > to 'maintainer-wanted@gentoo.org'
>
> This isn't the problem. We'll never can maintain all this stuff - given the
> number of people we're. We need more devs - just to clean up the current tree
> and maintain it properly at it's current size one- or two hundred (having
> fluctuation in mind) more guys wouldn't harm. The problem is more that we
> have devs who constantly add (arbitrary) stuff to the tree, instead cleaning
> out and caring for unmaintained stuff, before adding something new.

The real problem which you're hinting at is that developer interest is
transitory. Nobody thinks "Hell, I'll just add loads of odd crap to
the tree and then ignore it", it just happens that people suddenly
become interested in some software (maybe for a project, or client..),
use it for a while, and then stop using it. Now they are still listed
as a maintainer but don't bother version bumping or bug fixing, since
they no longer have an interest in the package. Despite this, people
keep posting patches to bugzilla, which are ignored (they are lots of
user bug reports with simple patch fixes attached that never make it
into the tree). The "maintainer for ever" model is broken; hopefully
the community maintainer model that Sunrise is encouraging will prove
better over time.
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