I guess that answers most of it.
> > - Of course, we need to make sure that new comers don't just take old
> > modules (which work very good) and break them
>
> You can never assure that, and who would decide and monitor that
> anyway? Even if the module transfers to a new author, the older
> versions stay in the original authors directory.
>
> It's rare, though, that people take over modules that work very well so
> this isn't a big deal.
This is something Geoffrey wrote, which I think is a reply to this as well:
> Amen to that. Perhaps a "sandbox" where new versions would live for a
> while? With CPAN testers getting an (automated) vote?
> > - The trickiest: what if I wrote a module, but I don't want to add to
> > it, and I don't want anyone else touching it ever - I want it the way
> > it is and that's it. Do we fork it?
>
> You fork it. The module belongs to the author until he says otherwise
> or he disappears completely.
Another relevant comment from Geoffrey:
> If I understand the Artistic License correctly, anyone can grab a
> module, modify it and release it under a new name. So I think that the
> proper concern is how to manage forked modules. Perhaps a numbering/
> naming scheme that says, in effect, "This is a forked module under
> different authorship from the root, that has most/all of the underling
> functionality of the original." Guidelines for spelling the departures
> of the forked module from the original would be helpful, also.
>
> Additionally, there should be a procedure for bringing a forked module
> into the main branch, once the original author has been determined to
> be unavailable/uninterested.
Perhaps we do need some added guidelines to CPAN.
It's growing very big and very broad but still lags behind on certain things.
The fact that we have multiple "UNAUTHORIZED" releases (that are still
easily found - something before the "authorized" releases - which is confusing),
the fact that many modules that were abandoned are still used and the patches
in the bug reports are piling up when you just need someone to apply them
and have them tested, the fact that we have a lot of forks for
abandoned modules,
the fact that some modules are so outdated they won't work on any
standard system,
and there's no way to parse them out in the search ("give me only modules which
work on 5.8 and hold the ketchup"). I really think it's not just CPAN that needs
revamping, it's the fact that it seems like we've overlooked a
bloating module archive
that is imperative to the community and as a community I think we need
to look into
it some more.
I'm not bitching, I just think we can improve things a lot.
Is anyone against looking into these things some more? Trying to open
a wiki on this?
Get more opinions and comments and suggestions and try to gather a
list of things
we'd like to change and start working on them?
(sorry if it came out preachy.. )
