Re: new apps without docs: policy request

[Don Scorgie <DonScorgie Blueyonder co uk>]

Hi,

On Thu, 2006-08-10 at 11:49 -0500, Shaun McCance wrote:
<snip>
> I think this went nicely, and I expect the release team
> will continue doing this.  In light of this new process,
> I've been thinking over the last week of proposing a new
> rule.  New modules proposals are not required to have
> documentation, but in the months between proposal and
> decision, maintainers must make a concerted effort to
> work with members of the GDP to make docs happen.
> 
> Do bear in mind that, until feature freeze, any module,
> new or not, can change completely behind our backs.  So
> we shouldn't expect to be able to produce complete and
> final documentation for new modules before the decision,
> because the decision happens at feature freeze.  But we
> can get a big chunk of the work done, or at least know
> what we're getting ourselves into.

Since new modules are quite a lot of work for documenting, perhaps an
earlier feature freeze should apply for them?  Or some sort of "soft
freeze" where it is guaranteed that new features would only be added if
specifically requested by the release team (or to fix critical bugs).  A
week or two before the real feature freeze, the expectant modules would
enter this soft freeze, in which time, documenting can start happening.
This at least would give our hard-working document writers a chance to
get at least a skeleton doc ready in time for feature freeze.

Don