On 6/27/12 6:06 PM, Johan Tibell wrote:
This is not a theoretical issue. We have had all of the following problems happen in the past due to the current process:
* patches never making it upstream * releases of libraries without knowledge of the maintainer (who finds out by finding a new version of his/her package on Hackage.) * packages being released by GHC never ending up on Hackage, causing build breakages for people who use older GHCs and can't install the packages as they aren't available on Hackage.
At the almost certain risk of stepping into a discussion I don't fully understand, let me step into a discussion I almost certainly don't fully understand :-) It seems to me that all these issues could be solved by having a member of the GHC team an assistant co-maintainer on packages that GHC depends on, and acting as such in a responsible manner, and in addition, having all packages bundled with GHC releases drawn from hackage releases. This is to say, that ghc-originated patches necessarily get committed to the upstream repo, because they must be there to be released on hackage, that ghc-originated patches necessarily get released to hackage because they must be there for GHC releases to draw on them, and maintainers necessarily know what gets released to hackage because they communicate well with co-maintainers. This is different than community ownership -- packages are still owned and maintained by individuals. However, by having a ghc assistant co-maintainer, there's a specified conduit for collaboration. This is also different from the current situation, because a co-maintainer may only work on issues for GHC release compatibility, but they are acting as someone with direct responsibility for the package and as part of the team that "owns" the package. Problems of collaboration aren't magiced away by this sort of change of titles, of course, but when there are problems of communication and collaboration, they can now be understood as and treated as problems between primary and secondary package maintainers. I hope this makes some semblance of sense. Cheers, Gershom