Re: MAINTAINERS file

[Karl Fogel]

Nick Roberts <address@hidden> writes:
> I can't pretend that I've always enjoyed RMS' autocratic leadership
> style but it was certainly unambiguous and clear, and showed enormous
> stamina covering most questions raised on the list.  Now that he's
> stepping down, it's not clear, to me at least, what the rules are and
> if Stefan and Yidong are going maintain Emacs in the same manner.
> Already changes appear to be being made more freely and I feel it
> could become chaotic.
>
> Therefore, I suggest that the MAINTAINERS file is resurrected and
> areas of Emacs identified for which responsible maintainers are found.
> To some extent this is done aleady and and it would merely formalise
> the arrangement.  This is probably only necessary for core (C source)
> Emacs development, and perhaps fundamental lisp development, e.g.,
> byte compiler, subr.el, and lisp packages could be maintained in their
> usual way.  By way of example, it might be helpful to look at the
> MAINTAINERS file for Gdb or Gcc, although these are probably too
> elaborate for Emacs current needs.  I think such a file would also
> make Stefan and Yidong's task less onerous.
>
> Just my two cents.

Could you identify the specific problems you think might arise without
a MAINTAINERS file?

You use "chaotic" pejoratively, but I'm not necessarily convinced :-).
It really depends on the kind of chaos (if any).  Many projects
operate without area maintainers, and do just fine.  Having area
maintainers can lead to gumption-thwarting territoriality and
unnecessary power relationships (I'm not saying power relationships
are always bad, but unnecessary ones are).

Let's wait until there's a problem before imposing a solution like
this.

-Karl