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
