Subject: Re: Git has a healthy truck factor..

From: Junio C Hamano <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 2015 14:11:01 -0700

Jeff King <[email-masked]> writes:

> On Tue, Jul 14, 2015 at 12:05:58AM +0100, Philip Oakley wrote:
>
>> It looks like Git has a healthy truck factor of 8, as reported in
>> https://mtov.github.io/Truck-Factor/, which has Git eighth in the list of
>> projects it analyzed, with Linux at second place.
>> 
>> The analysis method paper is behind a pay wall, so I couldn't see how
>> sensible the methodology, but it's nice to know Git's a broad team.
>
> One thing I noticed is that Homebrew has an extremely high number. But I
> suspect this is because it has a very large number of somewhat silo'd
> files. That is, people work on package formulas for projects that
> interest them, but what you really care about for the health of the
> project is who is working on the base system. Maybe those formula
> authors could step up, or maybe not, but I'm not sure that is reflected
> in this analysis.

We can actually say the same thing for us.  We do have a high number
of people who are competent, but I wish I can really say that I can
readily name 8 people who can act as an interim maintainer when I
disappear for a few weeks from the list.  I unfortunately can't.

Oh that reminds me.  I plan to do that disappearing thing this year,
around mid-November for a few weeks.  You, Shawn, and Jonathan have
took turns playing interim maintainers in the past years to help me.
As we do not see much of the latter two these days, I am wondering
perhaps it may be better to ask somebody new this year, which would
hopefully bring the actual number closer to that mythical 8 ;-).