Re: [ECOS] More maintainers

[Ross Younger <wry at ecoscentric dot com>]

Ãyvind Harboe wrote:
> I'm concerned that there aren't enough eCos maintainers to
> go around.
> There are *trivial* patches that take much too long to get
> any sort of attention. This is bad for eCos.

I think the question is not necessarily one of there being sufficient
maintainers so much as it is one of process. Is there a defined person
responsible for reviewing and incorporating submitted patches, or does it
just all fall to the tragedy of the commons "oh, someone else will look at
that"? It's not at all clear ... While expanding the core maintainer set
could be a bit drastic, there might be a halfway house to be found in terms
of some sort of delegated authority.

(In case it's not clear, I am speaking here as an individual and from my own
observations and opinions.)

At the same time, I note that the transition to a DRCS will have to be
managed properly; the maintainers would have to decide how they want to
manage their repo and what development model they want to use. That strikes
me as an ideal time to also consider the question of patch-handling and any
other issues with the development process which the community may care to
raise. (Of course eCosCentric will have to ask similar questions about the
eCosPro repository - but that's not a topic for this list.)

This isn't new ground; there are a great many open source projects who do
develop effectively using one DRCS or another. We must surely be able to
learn from them; I am anxious that we should think things through properly
and not just muddle into it. That reminds me, I really need to go and get up
to speed with the relevant bits of the Mercurial book...


Ross

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