From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Eli Zaretskii Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: admin/MAINTAINER edits Date: Thu, 01 Oct 2015 12:01:12 +0300 Message-ID: <83lhbn9d47.fsf@gnu.org> References: <8h9mbbrt9.fsf@fencepost.gnu.org> Reply-To: Eli Zaretskii NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1443710605 24269 80.91.229.3 (1 Oct 2015 14:43:25 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 1 Oct 2015 14:43:25 +0000 (UTC) Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org To: Glenn Morris Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Thu Oct 01 16:43:17 2015 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1Zhf4k-0000B6-1E for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Thu, 01 Oct 2015 16:43:14 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:51139 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Zhf4j-0003Ew-FZ for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Thu, 01 Oct 2015 10:43:13 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:57675) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1ZhZk7-000230-LM for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 01 Oct 2015 05:01:36 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1ZhZk1-000443-To for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 01 Oct 2015 05:01:35 -0400 Original-Received: from mtaout21.012.net.il ([80.179.55.169]:64585) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1ZhZk1-000430-MJ; Thu, 01 Oct 2015 05:01:29 -0400 Original-Received: from conversion-daemon.a-mtaout21.012.net.il by a-mtaout21.012.net.il (HyperSendmail v2007.08) id <0NVJ006009W3MR00@a-mtaout21.012.net.il>; Thu, 01 Oct 2015 12:01:22 +0300 (IDT) Original-Received: from HOME-C4E4A596F7 ([84.94.185.246]) by a-mtaout21.012.net.il (HyperSendmail v2007.08) with ESMTPA id <0NVJ006GCAEAJ170@a-mtaout21.012.net.il>; Thu, 01 Oct 2015 12:01:22 +0300 (IDT) In-reply-to: <8h9mbbrt9.fsf@fencepost.gnu.org> X-012-Sender: halo1@inter.net.il X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: Solaris 10 X-Received-From: 80.179.55.169 X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:190548 Archived-At: > From: Glenn Morris > Date: Wed, 30 Sep 2015 16:00:50 -0400 > > What's going on with all these pointless (IMO) admin/MAINTAINER edits? They aren't pointless. I asked for them. > Section 3 "the list of areas for which no maintainer has been found so far" > has recently been filled out with a huge dump of files. Eg > > lisp/calendar/* > lisp/gnus/* > lisp/progmodes/f90.el > etc etc > > These things are not unmaintained. > Nor are the vast majority of items in that section. Then let's remove the files that are not unmaintained. In fact, the entire section 3 could go away, as it doesn't provide any useful information, IMO. > IMO MAINTAINERS, which was neglected for years, isn't very important. > I was hoping to just see it go away, not get revived. It just sits > around duplicating information, getting outdated, and not being used. Many/most our files say the maintainer is FSF, which is not very useful. MAINTAINERS fills that gap. It's a single file that needs to be consulted, so I don't see a problem if it repeats what some files already say. > If someone is listed in an individual file's header, listing them again > in this file is just pointless duplication. I don't think this duplication is something we should worry about. > (And the presumption is that the Author is the Maintainer if none is > explicitly listed.) That assumption is incorrect in many cases. The original authors are long gone or lost interest or no longer work on Emacs. We are going to a period of time where maintenance is scattered between many more people than it was before. It's quite possible that this period will last forever. How else could I or you or someone else know whom to ask to look into some specific problem that was reported and not handled soon enough? The current situation with timely handling bug reports and other problems is IMO intolerable, and we must somehow make it better. I think when someone declares his/her interests in public, that will cause them feel more responsible for those parts, and will allow us to ping them when they miss the original reports for some reason. So I think on balance this file is helpful. > IMO the MAINTAINERS files was only every really "useful" for abstract > things like > > Jason Rumney > W32 > > (BTW, that entry is fairly obviously no longer appropriate, as are some > others.) Feel free to delete those you know are no longer appropriate.