One of the problems I see with CPAN is that there are many modules
which have been left unattended. Many of these have outstanding bugs,
and a good number have patches and forked versions, some of which you can
find on RT. You'll also find people offering to take over the maintainership
of modules. While reviewing modules I've identified a lot of fixes, and
documentation improvements, but it can take a lot of effort to get them out.
If the author or current maintainer of a module is unresponsive, there's
a well-defined, but lengthy, process to request co-maintainership.
There are good reasons for this -- I'll assume you've read them.
But in reality, plenty of authors lose interest
To make life easier for the perl modules cabal, how about a voluntary
pledge[*], which module authors can take publically, and in particular
can take to modu...@perl.org. I'll be emailing the following to
modu...@perl.org:
I hereby give modu...@perl.org permission to grant co-maintainership
to any of my modules, if the following conditions are met:
(1) I haven't released the module for a year or more
(2) There are outstanding issues on RT which need addressing
(3) Email to my CPAN email address hasn't been answered after a month
(4) The requester wants to make worthwhile changes that will benefit CPAN
Should I die, then the time-limits in (1) and (3) do not apply.
This means it will be archived, and easily accessed. I'll put this in the
README for my modules.
If others, and particularly the modules cabal, think this is a good idea,
maybe we could have a canonical place this this, which can be easily
referred to. Perhaps PAUSE could let me record it, so there's one place
the modules cabal can check? Or you could put it in module metadata?
So, what do y'all think?
Neil,
in the light of recent discussions, donning flame-retardent long-johns.
[*] I tried to come up with a catchy name for this, but failed. Ideas?
