Grant Ingersoll wrote:
Therefore, it is with some hesitation that I suggest we mothball Lucy.
When committers are inactive for a year, we ask them if they'd like to be made emeritus. Usually they either don't respond or they say yes. If they say "no" we give them the benefit of the doubt for a while longer. A similar process is followed for Apache members who've been inactive. Inactivity should not be punished: we're all volunteers.
If there's a decent chance that Lucy will become active soon then we don't want to further burden that. Marvin has argued that there's a strong chance Lucy will become active soon. I'm inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt for another six months or so before we do anything that would be nontrivial to reverse.
So if "mothballing" would be easy to reverse, it might be okay. We could just, e.g., change the website to say, "inactive", remove the website from the TLP's website and remove commit privileges, but not remove accounts, mailing lists or JIRA instances. Then reversal would take about 10 minutes of the PMC chair's time. Marvin or others could petition this list to have it reversed.
But I'd also be fine with putting the project on notice for a few months, with the understanding that if activity doesn't pick up soon, it will be mothballed, as outlined above. Then, after mothballing, if nothing happens for a while longer, we remove it altogether. At each transition we should invite discussion. I don't see much point in rushing this.
This path does risk dragging out the pain, so we shouldn't go down it too lightly. Marvin, do you expect you'll be actively committing code to Lucy over the next six months? If so, I think we should give him that, if not, we should mothball now as outlined above.
Another analysis to consider: If Marvin came to us today and pitched Lucy, would we accept it as a single-committer subproject? If not, then we should mothball now. If so, then we can give him the benefit of the doubt for a bit longer.
Note that, if we give notice now, and nothing happens in six months, that's likely to considerably reduce our patience.
Doug P.S. I hereby resign as a Lucy committer.
