As John Goerzen created at least one useful software, offlineimap, which I daily use, I think I owe him at least this article.

He describes an interesting problem, 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

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