Agreed. JFDI. It puts everyone (users, you, the "real" maintainer) in a tough position when you just "take over" someone's module without having provided any code. Maybe you want to work on it, but after you realize what that actually entails you'll become a "bad maintainter" too. That doesn't solve any problems.
Send patches, send good bug reports. We're a community here, everyone /wants/ to help everyone else. Forget about who "owns" what, though, because it just doesn't matter. Regards, Jonathan Rockway Mark Stosberg wrote: > Ovid wrote: >> Hi all, >> >> No names, but if you happen to be sitting on a module which other people >> depend on and you're not going to fix bugs, give up the module, offer >> someone co-maintainership or figure out *something* which gives users a way >> out. I realize that not everyone has a pile of free time to constantly >> upgrade and maintain modules, but if it's something widely used and you >> don't have time for it, isn't the responsible thing to find a way to get >> those bug fixes out there? > > I just want to point out that "giving maintainership" involves two > consenting parties, and this a author-centric approach. > > The user-centric approach works too. Leave patches in RT. Follow-up on > the other bug reports until you reach resolution. Leave a note in RT > that says "I recommend this issue be resolved because..." > > Go ahead and prepare a next proposed release with tests/docs/code and > ChangeLog updates and tell the author they can simply sign-off on it. > > I now help maintain Data::FormValidator, CGI::Session, CGI::Application, > and WWW::Mechanize, none of which I wrote. > > In all cases, the existing maintainers have been appreciative of my > pro-active approach. > > From my perspective, there aren't enough users acting like the software > is "theirs". Considering the licenses on CPAN, they have equal right to > work on it. I'm not sure what the hang-ups are for getting users to be > more active, though. > > I say: If you are care about a module's maintenance, start acting like > you own it, being considering that others, especially the current > maintainer, may feel the same way. > > Mark >
