Ok, then the whole issue reduces to the small remark why should this statusThe first thing we want to avoid is messy projects in the first place.
be 'closed', because to my ears that sound as 'ready'. I think it makes no
sense closing project when it is obviously not finished ('frozen' or
'inactive' is much clearer), and little sense if the project is in active
development (and so is already 'frozen' implied by the 'freeze' of the
complete repository, so there is little need to explicitely freeze the
project individually, but well, that's a detail).
I think we should reflect the actual status of the projects in their status.
If that happens to be a messy reflection because projects are long
open/frozen/inactive because of lack of time of their members, then so be
it, things which are messy should also look messy... Projects should not be
closed because that looks nicer on the site or so.
We want projects with clear goals, and project members that try to accomplish that goal all the way.
If a project is inactive because there are no people working on it, the status should become inactive or closed. Not because it is finished but because nobody is working on it anymore (freezing a project that will be picked up by other people with different ideas makes no sence, in that case it's better to redefine the project). This is also the reason why project can only be started when sufficient people commit to a project, to avoid that projects fails by lack of time. If a project is still active it doesn't make much sence to close it and reopen it (you are right about that), but at least the project status should be updated and clear information about who is still working on that project should be provided. We still have to communicate a date on which projects should give their updates (i will put this on the next MMChat meeting).
Rob
