Re: Another others for maintainer?

["John Wiegley" <johnw@newartisans.com>]

>>>>> Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:

> No, he hasn't. Primarily because I don't know what is expected of a
> (co)maintainer that I don't already do. If the answer is NOTHING, then you
> already have me, albeit unannounced. In that case, I can give up the title.

I have a strong feeling that in the future, we will need to become a more
distributed team, in terms of responsibility. The days of one overarching
maintainer who knows all and does all are, I think, now over.

My ideal scenario is this:

 - I'm willing to act as "project manager" in the non-technical sense. That
   is, charting the course, working with contributors, planning releases,
   keeping an eye on matters of concern, liaising with the FSF. This is a
   pleasant role for me, and doesn't require daily output.

 - Eli -- without whom even *imagining* this would be impossible -- would
   become our primary technical lead, the person I rely on most to keep the
   ship aright and stay on top of bug submissions and patches.

Eli and I, in turn, would start assigning responsibilities and delegating to
others, until we have a distributed team of hopefully 10-20 people, each with
their own time, energy, experiences and expertise. For example, asking Sacha
Chua to help us stay on top of community affairs.

"Many hands make light work", and I think these hands will be the only way we
can successfully move forward, given that we don't have Stefan Monniers or
Gerd Moellmann's jumping out of the woodwork these days.

My hope is that rather than having people like Eli stop contributing due to
burnout, we'll be able to support them with a steady influx of new blood. It's
just a matter now of finding those people. Maintainership should really be a
community burden, but with just enough hierarchy that we don't become stalled
by indecision.

John