maintenance coverage

[Andreas Hartmetz]

On Sunday 20 May 2007 13:22:52 Oswald Buddenhagen wrote:
> hi,
>
> the basic idea is to gather some information about how well particular
> parts of kde are maintained. the primary goal would be to give hints
> where help - or in the worst case a new maintainer - is needed.
>
> the primary tool would be bugzilla, obviously.
> based on how long reports for a component stay in particular states,
> "activity percentiles" for "maintenance" (bugs) and "development"
> (wishes) could be calculated. additionally, if many reports are dealt
> with by somebody else than the registered maintainer, a "de-facto
> maintainer hint" could be issued (yes, i'm aware that mailing lists and
> dedicated bug triagers have to be taken into account).
>
> in a next step, svn directories could be mapped to bugzilla components.
> potential benefits would be more accurate statistics - taking into
> account the actual size of the component and non-bugzilla activity.
> additionally, the MAINTAINERS files would be obsoleted by this more
> formal structure which hopefully would be easier to keep up to date with
> the help of automated hints.
>
> now, it's clear to me that many people will choke on the idea of some
> data mining apparatus watching their productivity. however, while much
> of FOSS is about egos, one should not forget the benefit for the
> community. and it's not about taking away power from people, it's about
> providing them with hard data to help making responsible decisions.
> and if it works out, it will gain us some additional developers.
>
> of course, all this talk is worth nothing if nobody feels like
> implementing it - i most probably won't. just throwing in ideas.
> now give it a roasting. :)

Considering that when I want to do something in kdelibs I often have to fiddle 
with something else that's five years old and unmaintained first...
Hard data would be very much appreciated so that people can take 
maintainership where it's needed. Where are the scripting wizards ? :)