Moritz Angermann <moritz.angerm...@gmail.com> writes: > Hi there! > > Again I don't expect much to change, except for GHCHQ becoming > co-maintainers for libraries GHC depends on. The baseline expectation > will remain as it is. However we will have ensured the frictionless > development of GHC going forward. > While I think this would indeed help and wouldn't mind seeing this idea implemented, last time it was floated there was quite some resistance from some maintainers.
Really, I think the problems with core library maintenance that GHC feels are bigger than GHC. Afterall, if it takes weeks for a patch from the GHC release manager to make its way into a core library, it will almost certainly take the same time, if not longer, for a patch from a non-GHC contributor to be accepted. We see this in the large number of outstanding merge requests in some of the core library repositories. This isn't a problem that GHC can solve; the bus number for many of our core packages is simply too low. I think the way to fix this is to ensure that core libraries have a sufficiently large pool of maintainers that responsiveness is not a question. Of course, fixing this isn't easy. Our core libraries *need* to maintain a high standard of quality and enforcing that standard requires effort on the part of skilled maintainers. Finding maintainers who have the desire, time, and skill to fill this role is hard. That being said, I do feel that currently outside contributors don't feel welcome enough to even offer to help, largely *because* of the rather minimal maintenance that some core packages see. There is something of a chicken-and-egg problem here. I would also like to reiterate that the above doesn't describe all core libraries. Most of our core library maintainers are impressively responsive and this is something for which I am very grateful. Moreover, while I do believe that the discussion above points to a real problem, I want to make it very clear that all of our core library maintainers deserve recognition for the difficult role that they fill: hand-holding contributors, triaging tickets, reviewing merge requests is hard work and the success of our entire ecosystem rests of their efforts. The fact that Haskell has seen such growth in the past years is in large part the direct result of their work which has made Haskell such a joy to use. Cheers, - Ben
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