LYNX-DEV Lynx development process

[Michael Sokolov]

   Dear Ladies and Gentlemen,
   
   I still don't quite understand the Lynx development process, especially
once Klaus is gone. Once I have asked if a patch I was going to write would
be accepted, and someone has responded that there is no such thing as
acceptance in the collective development process: people write patches and
users decide which patches they like and which they don't like. But that's
just not true! Someone has to have write access to sol.slcc.edu, someone
has to maintain one central current source tree, and someone has to make
official releases. But all Lynx documentation talks only about volunteers
on lynx-dev doing work on Lynx, but not about the central manager
maintaining the source tree and making official releases. It seems to me
that other projects based on individual contributions (e.g., FreeBSD) do a
much better job at the administrative tasks. They always publish an up-to-
date list of people with write access to the source tree and have an
explicit change approval procedure.
   I propose that the Lynx development process be made a bit more formal.
We should have a complete, up-to-date list of people with write access to
sol.slcc.edu, a single person responsible for committing the changes to the
official current source tree, and a defined procedure for making changes.
Each time a lynx-dev member asks for a change (submits a patch), the
central person responsible for committing changes must respond to lynx-dev,
saying whether the change is accepted or not (if not, give reasons).
   Please comment on the feasibility of such formalization.
   
   Sincerely,
   Michael Sokolov
   Phone: 216-646-1864
   ARPA Internet SMTP mail: address@hidden
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