Re: [gentoo-dev] Developer Retirements

[Gordon Malm]

On Monday, March 9, 2009 11:44:55 Doug Goldstein wrote:
> I'm wondering what exactly is the harm in letting developers idle for a
> while? While they might not be actively committing they are still
> knowledgeable people that are just as capable as everyone else to push in a
> fix for small packages. There's lots of bugs in bugzilla with items that
> just need someone active to commit them. There's even a lot of these items
> are filed by retired Gentoo developers who could have easily pushed this
> fix for all users. The fact that someone only does one commit a year does
> not marginalize their contribution. While it may be small it is improving
> the overall quality of the distro. I'm constantly seeing developers getting
> upset over getting pushed out.
>
> What we really need is not a smaller, leaner development force. But a
> leadership team that's smaller and more effective and willing to take
> charge to get something done. I'm hoping that we can get away from the 6
> month GLEP process and towards something more streamlined.
>
> --
> Doug Goldstein


It is possible that maybe we've been too forceful in retiring people who still 
wish to contribute.  Sometimes it appears that way from the outside.  But as 
I am not on that team, I don't really know and therefore will not attempt to 
pass judgement on their processes.  From what I have seen and understand they 
do try to make contact multiple times to understand the situation before 
retiring anyone.

There is an important security aspect to retiring folks - commit abilities.  
Perhaps in the case a dev wants to contribute but cannot in the near future 
their commit privs can just be revoked until such time they ask for them to 
be turned back on?  I guess that would be an 'extended devaway' ?

Gordon Malm (gengor)