& XSLT Hi all,

For the slack season, I would like to post a note on how to make the 
Perl XML corner a better place.

There are hundreds of XML modules on the CPAN; some of them are often 
reused and become parts of many Perl/XML projects. However, the activity 
and motivation of module maintainers varies in time. Even the most 
frequent modules don't develop smoothly. Sooner or later, their 
maintainers are busy with other projects, they change an employer, a 
favorite programming language or a partner, and things start to go wrong 
for the module users. This is neither surprising nor specific to Perl XML.

I believe there is a way to minimize these kind of problems. The sources 
of key modules should be available in a public repository, accessible 
for a large number of developers. An "official" maintainer would control 
the development and releases as long as he/she is active. Otherwise, 
another user can double for him/hear quite easily.

In practice, this could mean to resuscitate the Perl XML project 
(http://perl-xml.sourceforge.net/) and to move selected modules to it's 
CVS. Their authors or maintainers would lose an exclusive access to 
sources, but they gain a membership in a larger project and a good 
karma. I think it worths a consideration. In the last resort, when there 
is no response from the current maintainer(s) or there is no current 
maintainer, I would even suggest to take sources from the latest stable 
CPAN distribution and put them in CVS.

The next condition would be to have a sufficient number of active 
developers and administrators within the project. In fact, the scale is 
what makes the difference from common one-developer projects, and what 
hopefully stands better against the time.

To be more specific, here is the start of the list of core modules I 
would like to see in a public repository:

XML::SAX
XML::NamespaceSupport (agreed by Robin, after 2 l of beer approx.)
[...]


Thanks for your comments,
Petr


-- 
Petr Cimprich
Ginger Alliance
www.gingerall.com

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