New port with maintainer ports@FreeBSD.org [was: Question about maintainers]

[Paul Schmehl]

--On Friday, July 29, 2005 13:12:52 +0200 Pav Lucistnik <pav at FreeBSD.org> 
wrote:

> Lupe Christoph pí¨e v pá 29. 07. 2005 v 12:59 +0200:
>> Quoting Pav Lucistnik <pav at freebsd.org>:
>> > Paul Schmehl pí¹e v èt 28. 07. 2005 v 16:31 -0500:
>>
>> > > Thanks, Scot.  That's helpful to know.  I wasn't aware, for example,
>> > > that anyone could submit PRs for a broken port.
>>
>> > Please don't do that, unless you also submit a fix.
>>
>> > Because committers are few and usually are not very familiar with the
>> > given broken port. Such PRs tend to be left untouched for years and
>> > then swept under the carpet too often.
>>
>> I see such PRs as useful. At least the save effort for people having
>> the same problem, pointing them to a known deficiency. And they *might*
>> still get fixed.
>
> In theory, yes.
>
> In practice, majority of them never see a single followup and all they
> serve for is to keep GNATS numbers high.
>
How about this?

Write a script that parses the submit dates.  After an agreed upon amount 
of time with no action (6 months?  A year?) the PR gets automatically nuked 
and the original submitter gets an email message - Dear John, we're sorry, 
but nothing was done to correct the problem you submitted in prxxxxx. 
(Copy of the original PR attached.)  If this problem remains unresolved and 
needs to be resolved, please resubmit under a new PR.

That would at least put the onus on the PR submitter to followup on the 
original submission, and, I would think, eliminate "non-serious" 
submissions eventually.

Paul Schmehl (pauls at utdallas.edu)
Adjunct Information Security Officer
University of Texas at Dallas
AVIEN Founding Member
http://www.utdallas.edu/ir/security/