discuss: Dealing with poor maintenance by maintainers
Subject:
Re: Dealing with poor maintenance by maintainers
From:
David Merrill ####@####.####
Date:
13 May 2002 16:48:41 -0000
Message-Id: <20020513174000.GE3264@lupercalia.net>
On Sun, May 12, 2002 at 10:36:46PM -0700, David Lawyer wrote:
> This may be true in the short run. Bur after a number of years, the doc
> may be almost completely rewritten and the credit due to the original
> author is not very significant. If it's about hardware, the hardware
> that the ordinal author wrote about may become obsolete and relegated to
> a historical section (or another doc.). But if one doesn't have time to
> maintain a doc, and lets it become outdated, then they don't get much
> credit for such a doc either.
IMO, only the active maintainers should be listed as maintainers in
the meta-data and therefore on the main page. Former maintainers are
listed in the credits section. With some judgement applied...
The fame and kudos of being a published author at the LDP is something
we should encourage people to see as a benefit to them for doing the
work. But to keep your name in lights, you maintain the document.
Not that I would arbitrarily drop their name as policy or anything.
But new maintainers should consider moving it to a credits section
once the document has moved far beyond the original maintainer's
document. That just makes sense, but should be left at the new
maintainer's discretion. In the Linux FAQ, for instance, I continue to
list Robert because I have not made major changes as yet. When I do
make major changes, I will move him to the credits with the dozen odd
other former maintainers.
--
David C. Merrill http://www.lupercalia.net
Linux Documentation Project ####@####.####
Lead Developer http://www.tldp.org
The internet is central to everything we are doing.
--Bill Gates
