Slashdot Mirror
Contributing To a Project With a Reclusive Maintainer?
zerointeger writes "I am still fairly new to programming in C, but I was asked to extend an open source authentication module by my employer. The project is complete, testing has been done and it works as designed. The extension/patch I have created is fairly robust, as it includes configuration options, help files, and several additional files. The problem is that I have been unable to make contact with the current maintainer about having this feature added. I think the only reason I'd like to see this included is to prevent any patching of later revisions. A few others I have spoken with agree that the patch would benefit administrators attempting to push Linux onto the desktop, as we have done at the University that employs me. Has anyone else submitted patches/extensions to what seems to be a black hole?"
Either the official maintainer has lost interest, in which case you can simply fork the project, or
I am still fairly new to programming in C (...)
...University that employs me...
He looked at your code, and decided that some noob at a university wasn't worth flaming. This is a fairly common attitude among open source projects. You'll quickly develop a very thick skin.
Welcome to the OSS world, where maintainers disappear off the face of the earth, "unfun" parts never get updated, and projects die out to leave only stale Sourceforge pages dating back years.