Re: future of PEAR (was [PEAR-DEV] [Call For Votes] PHP::Fork)

Hi! Lukas Smith wrote:

Where are these brilliant developers that will create wonderful new PEAR2?

The problems that plague PEAR are not technical, they are managerial. As such, brilliant *development* (technical skill) is not what will make or break PEAR2. Brilliant *management* (social/planning skills) is the key factor.

Exactly. The problem is not that we lack technical competence. The problem is that PEAR focused on building technical foundations and totally ignored build up a working community process. This of course is just as hard to fix as technical mistakes. I see a clean slate as a place where we can redefine our community process. The fact that there is a PHP5, which addresses a lot of the limitations of PHP which we have to live with currently, is just another reason on top.

What exactly prevents adding this "community process" or whatever to the current PEAR? <example> Problem: there are packages in PEAR that have "stable" status but lack any kind of documentation. Solution: set a (reasonable) deadline, after which all "stable" packages not having documentation will be automatically demoted to "beta". Explicitly forbid marking the package stable if it does not have documentation. Add an automatic check for package upload. Do NOT add a clause that packages being maintained by Very Important Developers will not be demoted / will be allowed to be stable without having docs. </example> Current problem, as I see it is that all rules / regulations / peer review end with package being accepted. After that the developer may do whatever he sees fit. There is no procedure to change the maintainer. There is no procedure to add a temporary maintainer. There is no procedure to make a bugfixing release for a showstopper bug.