Re: Request new Ruby release

[Adam Dinwoodie <adam@dinwoodie.org>]

On Tue, 15 May 2018 at 00:49, Steven Penny wrote:
> fact. example is the Git package, which as of this writing is totally up
to
> date:

> - http://cygwin.mirrors.hoobly.com/x86_64/release/git
> - http://github.com/git/git/releases

I've been avoiding this thread as I haven't had anything productive to add.
However a package I maintain has now been invoked as an example, and I feel
compelled to respond; I am not comfortable with my work being held up to
shame other volunteer maintainers.

I entirely understand the desire for up-to-date packages to be available,
and clearly there are vast swathes of our packages that aren't kept at the
bleeding edge of the upstream release tracks. However I don't think this
email trail is a good way to encourage maintainers to put in the effort
required to keep things up to date. Maintainers, at least for the most
part, are going to be well aware when their packages aren't the latest
code, and equally be aware of the possibilities of releasing test packages.
Pointing these things out, particularly repeatedly, is unlikely to be well
received.

For anyone who wants to see Cygwin packages updated, a single prompt to the
maintainer is occasionally useful, but further prompts are likely to be
taken as hassling, not as helpful. Beyond that, I expect most maintainers
will have an idea of what other people could do to help if someone offered;
I know for myself I can point at specific things other people could offer
to help for each of my packages, and I imagine other maintainers would also
be able to answer a question of "I'd like to see this updated, what can I
do to help?", even if the answer is sometimes going to be "nothing".

As others have pointed out, the Cygwin package maintainers are volunteers,
using their own time and resources. I don't think any of them will
appreciate being described as acting in bad faith, myself included (and
while Git is up-to-date, other packages I maintain aren't, for a variety of
reasons, so I very much take the description as being levelled at me as
much as anyone else).

If someone genuinely thinks a package maintainer is acting in bad faith, or
otherwise not keeping up with their responsibilities as a maintainer, *and*
they're able and willing to put in the effort to take over the
maintainership, that's a discussion we can have. However, certainly in the
cases of Ruby and GCC and their related packages, as Yaakov has said, I
don't think there's any question from the other maintainers or the folk who
run the Cygwin project as a whole, that they are working in good faith and
keeping up with their responsibilities to the project, even if individuals
would prefer different behaviour.

This thread is not going to get GCC, Ruby, or any other package updated
more quickly than it otherwise would. I'd recommend folk who want to see
what they can do to get things updated ask what they can do to help, and
accept that the answer may be "nothing".

Adam

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