[gentoo-dev] <non-maintainer-commits-welcome/> proposal

[Florian Schmaus]

I'd like to propose a new metadata XML element for packages:

     <non-maintainer-commits-welcome/>

Maintainers can signal to other developers (and of course contributors 
in general) that they are happy with others to make changes to the 
ebuilds without prior consultation of the maintainer.

Of course, this is not a free ticket to always make changes to packages 
that you do not maintain without prior consultation of the maintainer. I 
would expect people to use their common sense to decide if a change may 
require maintainer attention or not. In general, it is always a good 
idea to communicate changes in every case.

The absence of the flag does not automatically allow the conclusion that 
the maintainer is opposed to non-maintainer commits. It just means that 
the maintainer's stance is not known. I do not believe that we need a 
<non-maintainer-commits-disallowed/> flag, but if the need arises, we 
could always consider adding one. Although, in my experience, people 
mostly like to communicate the "non-maintainer commits welcome" policy 
with others.

WDYT?

- Flow