[Ksummit-2013-discuss] [ATTEND] What to do when a maintainer is no longer available

[Rafael J. Wysocki]

On Wednesday, July 10, 2013 02:54:30 PM Olof Johansson wrote:
> On Wed, Jul 10, 2013 at 1:45 PM, Steven Rostedt <rostedt at goodmis.org> wrote:
> 
> > Perhaps we should all have someone as a backup? Let others know who you
> > trust to work as the maintainer if something were to happen to you. We
> > can have limits to what that person can do in case you are still around
> > but only monumentally incapacitated.
> >
> > I rather have something in place before it happens. Unfortunately, it
> > will happen. It's just a matter of time.
> 
> Backup plans in case of worst case scenarios are of course very good
> to have. But having a backup or co-maintainer can be very useful and
> relieving even in normal circumstances; being able to take a couple of
> weeks off for vacation knowing that things are still looked after
> without close attention by yourself, for example.
> 
> I think the model Arnd and I have been using for arm-soc has been
> working remarkably well in that sense. It's been easy to shift over
> "point person" duties as we get busy with other things, switching back
> when things go the other way, etc. Sometimes latency goes up during
> the switchover since the new person doesn't pick it up immediately,
> but it's not usually a big deal.
> 
> For those who don't co-maintain, having others step up and starting to
> help out with reviews could be a good start. I think this has been
> discussed a number of times already w.r.t. scalability and those
> aspects. The same principles here apply, I'd say.

Well, that's not only about maintainers, but also about how many people knowing
the code sufficiently are around.

Arguably, there are pieces of code in the kernel for which we have one such
person or just a couple who are otherwise extremely busy.

To be honest, that's not a very comfortable realization.

Thanks,
Rafael


-- 
I speak only for myself.
Rafael J. Wysocki, Intel Open Source Technology Center.