Re: what to do is maintainer is lacking? (was: wine-unstable in Debian)

On Wednesday, April 18, 2012 04:57:14 PM Thomas Goirand wrote:
> On 04/18/2012 08:27 AM, Steve McIntyre wrote:
> > If a maintainer isn't (capable of) doing the necessary work on a
> > package themselves, then after a while the best thing they can do is
> > admit that and cede control to others. It's not an easy thing to admit
> > "failure" like this, but it's better to do it for the good of our
> > users and other developers than to continue blocking people. It's also
> > better for the developer involved to get away from the feelings of
> > guilt they may be having about not keeping up. There's no shame in
> > admitting a lack of time on a big volunteer project, we all understand
> > how this works...
> 
> This isn't aimed at the WINE maintainers (I didn't read the bug report,
> and I don't really care about this package) but...
> 
> what can we do if the maintainer doesn't admit his lack of time or his
> lack of skills/knowledge? My understanding is that in Debian, we are
> stuck, right? I believe that was the message of Chris: we don't really
> have procedures to take over a package, others than convincing the
> maintainer.

A couple of times I've said "It looks like you could use some help.  Would you 
like me to co-maintain with you?" and have generally gotten a positive 
response.  If it's put in terms of "Looks like you're busy, I can help" and 
not "You suck and should be fired so I can take over" people seem to be pretty 
open to it.

Scott K