discuss: Maintainer needed for Serial-Programming-HOWTO
Subject:
Re: Maintainer needed for Serial-Programming-HOWTO
From:
David Lawyer ####@####.####
Date:
30 Mar 2003 17:46:50 -0000
Message-Id: <20030330095252.GB492@lafn.org>
> > Alexander Bartolich wrote:
> >
> > Oops. The last thing I want is to be used in an LDP internal feud.
> > You can have it back again, if you like. And since I did no content
> > related changes you can remove my name from the title page.
>
On Sat, Mar 29, 2003 at 07:24:26PM -0700, Gary Frerking wrote:
> No sweat, Alexander.
>
> I don't think it's a feud. Not something I'm interested in fighting
> over, anyway.
>
> I know you're just trying to help -- just like I was trying to do when
> I made the realization that the HOWTO was dead a year and a half ago.
> The author's email wasn't even working at that time. At least my email
> has always worked, and I've been doing what I can to answer the
> questions I get.
It was not only dead 1 1/2 years ago when Gary Frerking took it over,
but it was quite stale then as it was written in 1997. And it was quite
incomplete when written.
I think that there may be a number of other examples of someone taking
over a document and making no (or minimal) substantial changes to
document that urgently needs changes and improvement. In my opinion,
when someone becomes the maintainer of a doc that needs a lot of
improvement, but doesn't make any substantial changes, then that person
is not maintaining the doc and is not really the maintainer.
> I'll take the hit that I've failed to progress beyond "step one" of
> getting the original document converted to sgml. Life happens.
It was already in Linuxdoc sgml when you took it over. But I consider
Linuxdoc to be a lot easier to work with and hence "better" in a sense.
So I think that step one was negative progress :-).
> If you are sincerely interested in taking it and moving forward with
> it, then go ahead. I do have a lot on my plate.
>
> If you were only taking it because you thought no one else was
> interested, then we should probably talk some more.
I apologize for acting too hastily about this but I saw questions on a
mailing list that could have been answered by an updated
Serial-Programming-HOWTO. This info was already in Vern Hoxie's
Serial-Programming-HOWTO and I had let the maintainer know about this
when he took it over. So I jumped to the conclusion that the HOWTO
wasn't being maintained (and this conclusion is in some sense correct).
It's now up to Gary Frerking and Alexander Bartolich to decide on who
will maintain this Howto. Perhaps you two could discuss this off-list
if more discussion is needed. But I hope that whomever continues with
it is able to incorporate Vern's stuff without much further delay. And
of course it is not just a simple matter of copying one into the other;
it needs to be reorganized. I'm willing to review the result. There's
also the problem of what to do with the man page written by Vern.
David Lawyer
