Re: SourceNav release ...

[Ian Roxborough <irox@redhat.com>]

On 06 Jan 2002 15:35:32 +0100 Ralf Corsepius <corsepiu@faw.uni-ulm.de> wrote:
>
> As RH apparently is not developing actively anymore, one solution would
> be to convert SN into a real OpenSource community project.
> 
> AFAIS, there would be 2 approaches to such an attempt:
> 
> 1.) Apply the existing RH-infrastructure and run it
> RH-conducted/assisted. 
> This would require RH to provide minimal assistance and support (ML,
> CVS, ftp etc) + generally OK-ing into such undertaking.
> 
> Given the existing SN-related infrastructure at RH, I fail to see why
> this should not work. At that lacks are active maintainers (RH or Non-RH
> person) willing to accept and apply patches + to guide people though
> development.

Well, this is what is happening.  Sorry if it isn't as fast and high
profile as you'd like.

The only downside of this is contributors have to sign a
Copyright assignment so that Red Hat retains the copyright.
Probably the first person who would recieve one is Khamis
(the copyright assignment will only apply to worked checked
in CVS).  I should beable to accept small patches (~12 lines?)
without a copyright assignment.

Before that I need to write a "how to submit patches" web
page so I can reject patches and point people to this page
so they can get there patch into shape.  Just simple things
like having a changelog entry, matching coding style and stuff.

> From my POV, it's only the lack of active maintainers which currently
> lets appear SN as "dumped dead code junk".

Beats leaving the code to rott away in a tarball somewhere where nobody
can download it.

> 2.) To lunch a GPL'ed non-RH related project somewhere else, using RH's
> SN-code as basis. IMHO, nobody actually would be interested in doing so
> and I also doubt it would actually work out.

sourcenav.sourceforge.net?

If somebody wants to host and maintain another version of SN that is
OK by me, this would avoid copyright assignment and stuff like that.
I would not stop maintaining a copy here, not until atleast the
other version was way better . :-)

> > I would think the right solution would provide a stable 5.1 release,
> > but also provide a plan for 5.2 and future releases.
> I fully agree.
> 
> But the only way to achieve something of this kind IMHO would be
> somebody (the maintainer - who is it? Ian, you?) to show some visible
> initiative - Currently, SN appears not only to be dead, but to
> unmaintained.

Well, if I was to "pull my finger out" as they say and make this
happen (i.e. copyrights, patches page, regular approvals etc.), would
you be interested in maintaining a small part of SN?  I would like to
divide up the work (Windows port/build, parsers, db, etc.) so it
is more manageable.

Ian.