Public SourceMage Discussion List

[Andrew Stitt <afrayedknot AT thefrayedknot.armory.com>]

On Sun, Jun 04, 2006 at 02:35:12PM -0500, Jeremy Blosser wrote:
> On Jun 04, Arwed von Merkatz [v.merkatz AT gmx.net] wrote:
> > there's a quite old bug[1] about getting MAINTAINER files in a state
> > that we can have per-spell maintainer declarations again.
> > The basic idea is that we would have a hierarchy of MAINTAINER files,
> > looked up like this:
> > - if there's a MAINTAINER file in $grimoire/$section/$spell, use that
> > - otherwise, use $grimoire/$section/MAINTAINER if it exists
> > - use $grimoire/MAINTAINER
> > 
> > The file itself would just have a list of developers who maintain that
> > grimoire/section/spell, with one developer per line in the format
> > "full name <the.mail AT domain.org>"
> > 
> > We currently have a few MAINTAINER files, like in the mail section, that
> > include spell names + maintainers. The advantage of the above scheme is
> > that it can be looked up automatically very easily.
> 
> I guess I'm skeptical of the need for yet another spell file vs. just
> sticking it in DETAILS at the spell level like we do with BUILD_API, but
> whatever the Sorcery team prefers works for me.
> 
> We will want some kind of concept of how we're going to keep these from
> going stale before we let people start claiming individual spells.  It's
> too common for people to do an update or two and then disappear, and no one
> is sure if they really still maintain it or not.  We could only allow
> individual spells to have a maintainer if the section they are in has a
> maintainer and that person approves.  That way the management of the
> maintainer status has a hierarchy as well that is more likely to work.
> That might kill the point, though.

I dont really see a point in a *spell* MAINTAINER file. We've had a
MAINTAINER line in DETAILS before, spells dont really have multiple
maintainers, certainly any case where that happens now is the exception
rather than the rule.

The MAINTAINER line in DETAILS historically served basically no purpose
since as mentioned by Jeremy, people put their name there then tend to
disappear. Sure some people do maintain one or two spells, but again,
thats by and large the exception rather than the rule.

I guess I just dont see it being of any use, and like last time this
was attempted, quickly becoming stale. Over time we'll come the same
conclusion about it as we did last time.

That being said, if you really want to try it we can see what happens,
as far as sorcery is concerned, the change only effects gaze. We
already have a gaze maintainer command that works on a section level.
Im just notably skeptical given historical trends.

-Andrew

-- 
_________________________________________________________________________
| Andrew D. Stitt  | acedit at armory.com    | astitt at sourcemage.org | 
| irc: afrayedknot | Sorcery Team Lead       |      ftp://t.armory.com/ |
| 1024D/D39B096C   | 76E4 728A 04EE 62B2 A09A 96D7 4D9E 239B D39B 096C  |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------