Re: Concerns about community contributor support

[Bastien <bzg@gnu.org>]

Hi Tim,

Tim Cross <theophilusx@gmail.com> writes:

> I agree and am willing to help if I can.

Great!  Would you agree to be "officially" appointed to this role,
with Timothy?  I put quotes on "officially": when moving toward the
new maintainance team, I'd like to list maintainers and their roles,
including the "contributor stewards".  If you prefer not to publicly
appear but still work on this, that's perfectly okay too, of course.

> One thing I do think would be helpful, particularly for documentation on
> maintenance of org mode, would be a clear outline of project goals and
> philosophy. Some of this would be 'concrete' statements, such as the
> minimum supported Emacs version, size of contribution and requirements
> to sign FSF copyright assignment paperwork, inclusion of acceptance
> tests, documentation, maintenance of backwards compatibility, API
> stability etc. Other parts would be more 'fuzzy' guidelines, such as
> avoiding complexity and 'blow out' in options/arguments, balancing
> features and maintainability, what should become part of org core and
> what should be in contributions or a completely separate add on package
> and what guidelines are used in assessing extensions/enhancements for
> inclusion etc.
>
> It will be challenging to define this as there are a wide diversity of
> views and priorities amongst the community. However, I think it would be
> an overall benefit for both the community and on-going development of
> org mode. 
>
> While I would be happy to help with this, I think the initial content at
> least needs to come from current key maintainers and if possible, some
> input from Carsten would be good. 

Fully agreed.  Input from old timers will be precious, too.  I will
work on this as we are transitioning to the new maintainance team.

Also, I commit to achieve this transition by August, 1st.  This may
seem a bit far away, but there is really no rush here, and I want to
ensure we have a smooth transition.