casual contributors (was: patch going unpushed)

[Graham Percival]

On Fri, Mar 23, 2012 at 08:18:26AM +1100, Peter Chubb wrote:
> Hi Graham,
> 
> Graham> We don't really have a frog meister, so nobody is taking
> Graham> responsibility for pushing
> 
>    I have another patch waiting, that depends on the first.
> 
> Is there supposed to be a procedure for casual contributers to follow?

No.  If that sounds scary, then you have the right reaction.

Or rather -- yes, there *is* a procedure.  You're supposed to show
up, then the frog meister should contact you with any details you
missed (such as using our git-cl).  Then you're supposed to upload
a patch, and the frog meister should keep track of your patch and
take care of all the details.  But since we don't have a frog
meister, this falls down.

So yes, you've been doing everything right.  We simply don't have
anybody who is willing to do ~30 minutes of admin work per week to
help casual contributors.

(and for the record: no, I am not willing to do that role.  I know
that I'm the expert on this subject, having mentored over 20
people in lilypond in the past, but I am not at willing to do that
job right now)

> The other open-source projects (QEMU, Linux Kernel, uClinux) I
> contribute to set up a Maintainer for each subsystem, and patches are
> submitted to that person to get pushed.  

In lilypond development, the "frog meister" is our name for
"maintainer".  But without somebody willing to do that job, we're
SOL.

> I don't really want to get much more involved in LilyPond than I am already
> --- I'm involved in two other open source projects (QEMU and Linux
> Kernel at present) that take up most of my (little) free time. --- but
> if you wanted to give me commit access, I could undertake to maintain
> articulate.  

Quite understandable.  I'll probably give you push access in a few
weeks, but that won't solve the general problem faced by casual
contributors.  To be frank, I'm using you to highlight this
problem.

Cheers,
- Graham