[forum] XFree86's Future and thoughts and suggestions

[David Dawes]

On Wed, Apr 02, 2003 at 09:23:13AM +1000, James Boyden wrote:
>On Tuesday, 01 Apr 2003, David Dawes wrote:
>
>> >   I think most parts of the tree correspond to people who are obvious
>> >experts.  Many of these people are the recognized maintainers, though
>> >some of them don't have CVS access.  That, in my opinion, should
>> >be remedied.  
>> 
>> I think that there are lots of parts of the tree for which there
>> are no people that have the three necessary things to be maintainers:
>> 
>>    1. they are very knowledgable in the area
>>    2. they can make the time/resources commitment to be effective
>>    3. they are committed to the general goals and integrity of XFree86
>> 
>> Some of these areas are probably stable enough that they don't need
>> dedicated maintainers.  Others do.  You mentioned input devices
>> before.  That's an area that could use an expert with a lot of
>> spare time.  If there's someone with experience in the broad input
>> handling area, and the necessary spare time who'd like to take this
>> on, then they should step forward.
>> 
>> As it stands now, we have maintainers for some areas that have all
>> but the second requirement.  The result is that there are those
>> who are dissatisfied with how quickly submissions for those areas
>> are handled.  That's why that requirement is essential to really
>> deal with the problem of getting stuff reviewed and integrated
>> quickly and correctly.
>> 
>> Anyway, I'd like to see a breakdown of the source tree, with
>> prospective maintainer's names attached, and preferably buy-in from
>> those nominated.  I've contacted a range of people recently, and
>> in the past.
>
>How is this progressing?  Does it look like it will happen?
>Is there any chance of such a breakdown being made public, to enable it
>to be used in the manner which I suggested in an earlier post?

Although some people are suggesting this approach, I haven't seen
any of them come up with such a breakdown, either privately or
publicly.  Hopefully one of them will come up with something (and
publicly) soon, preferably with buy-in from those named.  Until
it's demonstrated that these willing maintainers exist, it's nothing
more than a nice idea.

Right now we have partial coverage, with a very small number of
people picking up the rest.

David
--
Speaking for myself.