Subject: Re: [PATCH] RFC: add MAINTAINERS file

From: Taylor Blau <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 1 Apr 2024 17:33:46 -0400

On Wed, Mar 27, 2024 at 08:17:38AM +0100, Patrick Steinhardt wrote:
> On Sun, Mar 24, 2024 at 07:51:03PM -0700, Junio C Hamano wrote:
> > Junio C Hamano <[email-masked]> writes:
> >
> > > I am more worried about how the file is used and maintained.  Some
> > > things to think about while in the "spurred discussion" I can think
> > > of are:
> > > ...
> > >  - Is the project big enough to require this (especially for the
> > >    purpose of (1)), or would
> > >
> > >    $ git shortlog -n --no-merges --since=24.months -- path-to-file
> > >
> > >    be sufficient and more importantly the value that it will keep
> > >    current automatically outweigh the benefit of having this file
> > >    that can go stale?  To answer this question, we'd need to know
> > >    the turnover rates of past project contributors, of course.  If
> > >    it is too high, having such a list may help for (1) and (3)
> > >    above.
>
> I don't think of this as "big enough to require this". I rather think
> about the onboarding experience for new folks here. Sure, we can ask
> them to "Please run git-shortlog(1) to figure out whom to Cc". But if we
> instead provide a nice script that does it for them then we make their
> lifes easier.

Do you think that the script in contrib/contacts does a sufficient job
at this?

I admit that I am not a frequent user of it (mostly because I end up
either having a good sense of who I want to review patches ahead of
time, and/or I end up just running 'shortlog'), so I can't vouch for its
accuracy.

But from running it on a handful of patches just now locally while
replying to your email, it seems to do a reasonable job at identifying a
good set of candidate reviewers.

Perhaps we haven't been as good at advertising this script as we could
be, and that's why it isn't as widely used as it could be? I'm not sure.

Thanks,
Taylor