Brendan Cully wrote: > On Thursday, 04 April 2013 at 13:13, Kevin J. McCarthy wrote: > > On a different note, as a newcomer this reception is quite demotivating. > > Even a (polite) quick email rejecting the patch is better than dead > > silence. The development community doesn't appear especially vibrant. > > A more friendly and welcoming attitude surely wouldn't hurt. > > You're absolutely right. I and the other committers do not spend > enough time on maintenance (we're all spread a lot thinner than we > used to be, I think, and I don't see that changing in the short > term). We know it's a big problem. We need more maintainers (not just > patch writers), but we're doing a terrible job of encouraging people > to be more involved.
I understand. More patches just means more work. The people who know how to do things are too busy to do them, none-the-less mentor new people. There certainly isn't an easy solution to this problem. I would encourage mutt developers to start a thread and just list the things they wish someone would do, that would enable them to get other pressing things done. Then create a page or list, and post it somewhere visible, or periodically email the list out to mutt-dev. [Yes, I am happy to volunteer.] I don't know how many committers there are for mutt. It may be worth considering appointing a few trusted people keep their own hg repositories to vet and refine patches, which you and the other committers could pull from. (The Linux "trusted lieutenants" model.) I understand the desire to keep mutt lean and fast, but patches are the lifeblood of a project. Having a process for dealing with them is one of the best ways to keep the project membership healthy and growing. But enough from me. I hope other developers will take the time to add their thoughts (and gripes) to this thread. -Kevin
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