[osgeo4w-dev] How to contribute with small things? + trac default reply-to settings

[Frank Warmerdam]

Markus Neteler wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I wonder how to help out with trivial fixes such as
> http://trac.osgeo.org/osgeo4w/ticket/58
> ? I could solve it perhaps in a few minutes.

Markus,

One issue with fixing a package someone else has prepared is
that next time they regenerate it, they are likely to lose any
changes you made.  For this reason I think it should normally
be the packager responsible for a package that takes care of fixes.
In cases where the packager can no longer keep up, I think it would
be best to "officially" pass ownership to a new person to do work
on it.

This is one of the reasons I seek to have a per-package Trac
page, which lists amoung other things the maintainer.

> Additional suggestion: have the default reply-to in trac this
> list, not a private person.

The default Assigned To: is the osgeo4w-dev list.  This means
the whole list sees activity on the ticket until such time
as someone takes personal responsibility for the ticket by
assigning it to themselves.

To me this seems like enough broad visibility.

> Reasoning: In the GRASS project all trac
> communication goes by default to grass-dev (unless someone
> changes the reply-to in the ticket). This is a great help to
> keep people informed as manually browsing the trac for
> follow-ups is not practical. Reply-to-list commonly triggers
> discussion which could be a good accelerator for OSGeo4W.

Perhaps yes, perhaps no, but I unsubscribed from grass-dev because
there was just too much noise.  I'm already not so keen on the default
assignee being the list, but I see that as a compromise.

Best regards,
-- 
---------------------------------------+--------------------------------------
I set the clouds in motion - turn up   | Frank Warmerdam, warmerdam at pobox.com
light and sound - activate the windows | http://pobox.com/~warmerdam
and watch the world go round - Rush    | Geospatial Programmer for Rent