As a new guy, #2 happens a lot. I've had several improved pkgbuild's (for spideroak) as an example. I point out the mistakes, and the current version, ask for disown. Gets disowned. Somebody comes the next day, takes ownership and never addresses any concerns. So the package has had two terrible maintainers. Since the package isn't out of date, nothing can be done, but #2 happens a LOT. Considering that, I'd rather see a package out of date and disowned then owned and out of date. At least disowned will give the chance to somebody else to step up to the plate and take responsibility, vs sitting there with nobody quite sure what the current maintainer is thinking/doing. Would it be possible to show when the maintainer last even looked at a page, on the page? something like a 'modified' timestamp or some other clue how long this person has been absent. On Wed, Jun 8, 2011 at 10:42 AM, Bernardo Barros <bernardobarros2@gmail.com>wrote:
2011/6/8 Allan McRae <allan@archlinux.org>:
Seriously? If someone can not find the time to update a package in 3 months, there will be other people who can do a better job. If we waited 6 months for updates, we might as well be using Ubunutu.
Well, it's different. I think that could happen two whole different situations:
1. What I meant initially was: it is better to have a package outdated for a little time (3 or 6 months) then to orphan it and leave it alone until it finds another brave soul, maybe never.
2. The other situation is: another person already wants to take responsibility immediately, or even better, this new person already has a cool new and improved PKGBUILD in pastebin, and the maintainer does even bothered to accept the patch or even reply!
Then one or two weeks without reply is enough to transfer the maintenance.