Re: Gnome-Applets

[John Fleck <jfleck inkstain net>]

On Wed, 2003-02-26 at 05:15, Pat Costello wrote:
> I haven't seen anyone replying to Trevor's mail of some weeks ago. I suppose 
> that given the fact that most of the applets manuals are being looked after by 
> either Irene or Breda right now, then that puts me in line for stepping into 
> Trevor's sandals. Before I make a lasting lifelong commitment, though, what are 
> the full responsibilities of taking on maintainership for a whole group of jobs 
> such as the applets? 
> 

The most important social part is riding herd. That involves:
  * paying attentiont to the package, so you notice if the applets have
    changed and documentation needs updating
  * acting as a point of contact between the maintainer and the docs
    community[1]
  * hunting for new docs writers when old docs writers move on

The most important technical part is messing with the build:
  * making sure the Makefile.am bits in the build infrastructure work
  * making sure the omf files work
  * testing the whole thing as release time approaches to make sure the
    docs are getting correctly installed

For GNOME 2.4, Malcolm (poke, poke) will have a new build system set up
that should make the latter bits much easier. Now it's something of a
chore.

Cheers,
John

[1] One role that is not required but seems inevitable is that the docs
person gets involved in QA on the package itself, since you're always
looking at apps/applets more than most people. That's for sure a
function that individual docs writers end up playing with the apps
they're documenting, but seems to follow more naturally for the person
who has overall responsibility for docs for a package. Has something to
do with pride of ownership, I guess. :-)
-- 
John Fleck
jfleck inkstain net (h) jfleck abqjournal com (w)
http://www.inkstain.net http://www.abqjournal.com

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