www.nico.schottelius.org/blog/offlineimap-and-hpodder-need-a-maintainer.mdwn

[[!meta title="Searching for a maintainer for offlineimap and hpodder"]]

As [John Goerzen](http://www.complete.org/JohnGoerzen) created at
least one useful software,
[offlineimap](http://software.complete.org/software/projects/show/offlineimap),
which I daily use, I think I owe him at least this article.

He
[describes an interesting problem](http://changelog.complete.org/archives/1463-moral-obligations-of-free-software-authors), we FOSS developers have:

    He is happy with his software, but others would like to see more features.

I know that situation very well, if you think you're done, somebody just
pops up with a new situation or problem and I think:

    Yeah, how to solve that?

Yes, if I think it's an interesting problem, I take the time
to discuss it and maybe to develop a solution for it.

But sometimes I've other priorities (like family, studies or
- believe it or not - to enjoy the fine weather outside) and
then I reply:

    Dear hacker, cool problem! Here are my quality requirements,
    can you just send me a patch that applies cleanly against
    current development code (prefarable a git source)?

I cannot implement every (sensible) feature in software I've written
and I don't think it's my duty. That's what FOSS is all about:

    If people care, they fork or create a patch.
    If not, it's probably not worth implementing it anyway.

Regarding the ressources you're providing, John, I handle it that
way: I always provide

 * the source within version control (so things don't get messed up) and
 * a public contact point with archives (i.e. a mailing list)

These two points ensure that everybody who wants to contribute, can so.
I don't think a bugtracker, wiki, etc is worth it for most projects,
(you don't have bugs in your software anyway, do you? ;-), but

    If people care, they can setup a wiki, bugtracker, etc themselves.

Coming back to the title, as said John is searching for a maintainer for

 * [offlineimap](http://software.complete.org/software/projects/show/offlineimap) and
 * [hpodder](http://software.complete.org/software/projects/show/hpodder).

If you're reading this article, you may be interested in helping him ;-)

[[!tag foss]]