Re: PEAR's mission statement - let the fun begin

To get code into PEAR, it has to run a gauntlet of picky, fussy developers who will be against a package going into pear for very minor deviations from coding style. The level of feedback and the place it starts tends to be around the very start of a package - there's no ongoing review. What I would like to see is PEAR an 'open for everything' attitude. It should be really easy to publish any code you like through PEAR. It should be really; really easy for end users and developers to leave feedback for a package. This feedback should be right there on the front page of the package. Automated ratings of a package should be available too - a combination of "95 out of a 100 people download this package when they see it", users have rated this package "4 out of 5 stars", and this package is "50% documented (PHPDoc)". If it's crap, people will say so; and do it loudly. Though it should be dead easy to publish code (minimal review; sort out ridiculous from plausable pepr entries); it should be very hard to reach a 1.0; stable release (stringent review; documentation; tutorials; it should be possible to put out a call-to-arms in getting a package ready for 'stable'). Take a look at an addons.mozilla.org page https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/722/ Mozilla doesn't endorse any of the addons - they could be total and utter junk. They trust end users and community leaders to provide honest feedback and leave it at that. In short: PEAR should be more 'open', and relax standards in terms of getting packages in - apply them when packages want to take the 'stable' badge. PEAR should be about helping you sharpen a tool to be ready for use; even if that means you have a whole lot of dulled or blunt ones which never get used.