Bug#436093: Please decide on the "ownership" of the developers reference

[Josip Rodin <joy@debbugs.entuzijast.net>]

Hi,

I just saw this bug report mentioned on -vote. Setting aside the brief
scuffle that happened at the time this bug was filed, and in my capacity
as one of the previous editors of developers-reference and several other
documents, I'd like to say that the following two points:
* the developer's reference is documentation common to the entire project
  and as such it can't really be assigned to a single maintainer
* the developer's reference is a package, and as such can have a single
  maintainer
...don't exactly correlate to the following two:
* documents that don't have a designated maintainer can become effectively
  unmaintained because nobody ever takes responsibility
* documents that have a designated maintainer can become effectively
  unmaintained because that person can give up all too easily

There is no straightforward way to resolve that matter, at least I haven't
seen one lately...

Usually what happens, in either situation really, is that someone starts
contributing so much that they take things forward a lot, and during the
next <random period of time> they are considered the leader. Then they go
away for whatever reason, and after another <random period of time> someone
else (or even the same person) repeats the process.

IMO the only half-smart thing to do with this would be to make sure that
the barrier of entry into maintaining a document never goes up, because
that usually only ends up increasing that period of time it takes to get
someone to take it next time the document becomes unmaintained.
So, in that vein, tech-ctte should err on the side of caution and avoid
deciding to assign maintainership of developers-reference to any single
person.

-- 
     2. That which causes joy or happiness.