Subject: Re: Git in GSoC 2025

From: Junio C Hamano <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2025 13:00:27 -0800

Junio C Hamano <[email-masked]> writes:

> I do not mind either word, either, but I have two small issues to
> raise:
>
>  - Is each topic "owned" by some specific person?  Would an owner
>    retires from the project, would the leftover bits go away with
>    the owner?

I obviously meant "When an owner retires", but more importantly, I
should have offered an alternative here, instead of just raising it
as an issue.

How about making the rule a lot simpler?

    The expiration date kicks in _mechanically_, i.e. stale entries
    are unconditionally dropped at the date, based solely on the
    comparison between the timestamp and the wall clock.

People are free to advocate for its continued existence, and when
such an effort achieves a concensus among then-active members of the
community by the stated expiration date, a patch to update the
entry's expiration date may be accepted, thereby prolonging its
shelf life.  Unless such a thing happens before the expiration date
comes, we will mechanically drop the entry.

Of course people _can_ resurrect an expired entry later as a new
one when it seems appropriate.

That makes the decision to expire things from the list easy to make.

This is a tangent, perhaps we should adopt the same "drop
mechanically purely based on timestamp, but allow resuscitation"
rule for topic branches that take forever to hit 'next'.  It would
make my life a little bit simpler ;-).

Thanks.