On Sunday 03 February 2008, Gabor Szabo wrote:
> On Feb 3, 2008 12:01 PM, Shlomi Fish <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > On Feb 2, 2008 2:14 PM, Nicholas Clark <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > > On Fri, Feb 01, 2008 at 08:18:21PM +0200, Shlomi Fish wrote:
> > > > Due to the fact I did not hear from the original author for 2 weeks,
> > > > I'd like to ask the CPAN admins to give me ("SHLOMIF" on the CPAN) a
> > > > co-maintainer status so I can upload my modifications (and future
> > > > ones) as a new distribution.
> > >
> > > Some people go on holiday for more than 2 weeks.
> >
> > And some people go on holiday for more than that. The question is: how
> > long should we wait? There wasn't a new release of IO::Socket::INET6
> > for over three years, and it has three pending bug reports. This
> > probably indicates that the author is missing-in-action.
>
> Instead of this infighting why not just upload a development version
> of the module with something like this in the pod:
>
> "This is an unnofficial version of module X::Y::Z till the original module
> author reappears or till I get official maintainership of the the module."

First of all, the module I have is not a development version. It's as 
production-ready as the original. Secondly, I don't see the point of 
uploading my own version, as it won't get properly indexed by search.cpan.org 
and friends and won't be installed by CPAN.pm/CPANPLUS.pm by default.

Consider Pod::DocBook for example:

http://search.cpan.org/search?mode=all&query=pod%3A%3Adocbook

search.cpan.org still finds the old distribution by Alligator Descartes that 
wasn't updated since 1999. However, there's a newer version:

http://cpan-sj.viaverio.com/authors/id/N/NA/NANDU/

So it would just be a waste of time.

>
> Send another nice(!) letter to the author making it clear that you will be
> happy if he continued the maintenance of the module or if he passed it
> to you. 

I already sent him a letter, to which he as well as modules@ and 
module-authors@ were corresponded. He was also CCed on the rest of the 
conversation, including this message. If he can and wishes to respond, then I 
already did the best for him to do so.

> Then wait for another few weeks before asking the CPAN 
> maintainers again.

I could wait, but the question is - how long? Are their pre-defined policies 
for adopting a module, when it hasn't been maintained in a long time (and 
requires maintenance) and there is someone who volunteers to maintain it?

There's:

http://perldoc.perl.org/perlfaq7.html#How-do-I-adopt-or-take-over-a-module-already-on-CPAN%3f

The first step is to:

<<<<<<<<<<<<<
Write to [EMAIL PROTECTED] explaining what you did to contact the current 
maintainer. The PAUSE admins will also try to reach the maintainer.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Well, I tried to contact him by sending him an email to an address which was 
the only one I could find on the web. So I ask the PAUSE admins to also try 
and reach him.

> In the meantime both you and the users can already use your not official
> and development versions of the module.
>

They can already do that by pulling the source from the subversion repository.

Regards,

        Shlomi Fish

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Shlomi Fish      [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Homepage:        http://www.shlomifish.org/

I'm not an actor - I just play one on T.V.

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