Introducing status field to MAINTAINERS?
While going through the old patches, noticed some that are in parts of DPDK that are pretty much abandoned.
My suggestion would be introduce a subsystem status field in MAINTAINERS similar to what is done in Linux kernel.
S: *Status*, one of the following:
Supported: Someone is actually paid to look after this.
Maintained: Someone actually looks after it.
Odd Fixes: It has a maintainer but they don't have time to do
much other than throw the odd patch in. See below..
Orphan: No current maintainer [but maybe you could take the
role as you write your new code].
Obsolete: Old code. Something tagged obsolete generally means
it has been replaced by a better system and you should be using that.
Quoted 6 lines · Stephen Hemminger
While going through the old patches, noticed some that are in parts of DPDK that are pretty much abandoned.
My suggestion would be introduce a subsystem status field in
MAINTAINERSsimilar to what is done in Linux kernel.
Quoted 10 lines
S: *Status*, one of the following:
Supported: Someone is actually paid to look after this.
Maintained: Someone actually looks after it.
Odd Fixes: It has a maintainer but they don't have time to do
much other than throw the odd patch in. See below..
Orphan: No current maintainer [but maybe you could take the
role as you write your new code].
Obsolete: Old code. Something tagged obsolete generally means
it has been replaced by a better system and you should be using that.
That seems a useful addition. +1 to add the extra info.
17/07/2023 16:12, Bruce Richardson:
Quoted 18 lines · Stephen Hemminger
Quoted 6 lines
While going through the old patches, noticed some that are in parts of DPDK that are pretty much abandoned.
My suggestion would be introduce a subsystem status field in
MAINTAINERSsimilar to what is done in Linux kernel.Quoted 10 lines
S: *Status*, one of the following:
Supported: Someone is actually paid to look after this.
Maintained: Someone actually looks after it.
Odd Fixes: It has a maintainer but they don't have time to do
much other than throw the odd patch in. See below..
Orphan: No current maintainer [but maybe you could take the
role as you write your new code].
Obsolete: Old code. Something tagged obsolete generally means
it has been replaced by a better system and you should be using that.
Quoted 1 line
That seems a useful addition. +1 to add the extra info.
I think we prefer removing unmaintained code.
Quoted 19 lines · On Mon, 17 Jul 2023 18:04:51 +0200 Thomas Monjalon <[email protected]> wrote:
17/07/2023 16:12, Bruce Richardson:
Quoted 18 lines · Stephen Hemminger
Quoted 16 lines
While going through the old patches, noticed some that are in parts of DPDK that are pretty much abandoned.
My suggestion would be introduce a subsystem status field in
MAINTAINERSsimilar to what is done in Linux kernel.S: *Status*, one of the following:
Supported: Someone is actually paid to look after this.
Maintained: Someone actually looks after it.
Odd Fixes: It has a maintainer but they don't have time to do
much other than throw the odd patch in. See below..
Orphan: No current maintainer [but maybe you could take the
role as you write your new code].
Obsolete: Old code. Something tagged obsolete generally means
it has been replaced by a better system and you should be using that.
Quoted 3 lines
Quoted 1 line
That seems a useful addition. +1 to add the extra info.
I think we prefer removing unmaintained code.
I would prefer removal as well, but there are things like KNI and that stay around for a year. And marking it as obsolete before removal would help.
There are also some marginally useful things like ethtool which no one is maintaining.
Quoted 19 lines · Thomas Monjalon
17/07/2023 16:12, Bruce Richardson:
Quoted 18 lines · Stephen Hemminger
Quoted 16 lines
While going through the old patches, noticed some that are in parts of DPDK that are pretty much abandoned.
My suggestion would be introduce a subsystem status field in
MAINTAINERSsimilar to what is done in Linux kernel.S: *Status*, one of the following:
Supported: Someone is actually paid to look after this.
Maintained: Someone actually looks after it.
Odd Fixes: It has a maintainer but they don't have time to do
much other than throw the odd patch in. See below..
Orphan: No current maintainer [but maybe you could take the
role as you write your new code].
Obsolete: Old code. Something tagged obsolete generally means
it has been replaced by a better system and you should be using that.
Quoted 4 lines
Quoted 1 line
That seems a useful addition. +1 to add the extra info.
I think we prefer removing unmaintained code.
Yes, but this gives us a good way to flag and track what the status of the code is, so that we can see what is clearly unmaintained, or at risk of becoming unmaintained. I really like this status option because it gives us grades of maintenance - not just maintained/unmaintained binary option. For example, the FreeBSD port of DPDK is maintained, but given how much time I as maintainer spend on it, it would fall into the "Odd Fixes" category - which gives anyone checking up on it a lot more information about its future support than just saying it's "being maintained".