PEP: Procedure for Adding New Modules (please comment)

[Martijn Faassen]

Roman Suzi <rnd at onego.ru> wrote:
> On 4 Jul 2001, Martijn Faassen wrote:

>>Hi folks,

> ...
>>    In the case where no head maintainer can be found (possibly
>>    because there are no maintainers left), the integrators will issue
>>    a call to the community at large asking for new maintainers to
>>    step forward. If no one does, the integrators can decide to
>>    declare the contribution deprecated as described in PEP 4.
> ...

> This is too quick, IMHO: some libraries/modules could be actual for
> years even without any maintainers. (Yes, I hope Python to be *that*
> stable).

I said they *can* decide it, they don't have to decide it.
This is here to make explicit a circumstance when depcrecation of a module
can be invoked; if there is no one willing to maintain it anymore
the interest is low. It is also a mild stick to be used so that modules *will*
be maintained; the integrators start mumbling about deprecation may
be a powerful incentive to any would-be maintainers (it flushes out
people motivated to maintain it :) 

> So, probably there is a need to add a special category of unmaintained
> modules and ship them with the Standard Library as long, as they
> are useful and runnable.

It is still maintenance to verify whether something is still runnable.
What I should do is make explicit that python core developers can be
module maintainers; in fact what may need to be done is to make them
the module maintainers of most of what's in the library now. This is
still an open issue; I don't know what other people think about
this (most importantly the core developers!)

I think it is important to have a clear maintainer for everything
added to the library (and preferably also everything *in* the library).
If the maintainer's work is not much work at all, as you suggest, so
much the better for everybody. Additionally, if a lingering module
has an actual maintainer the chances are higher said module will
actually be developed further, which is a win for everybody too.

Regards,

Martijn
-- 
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