Author: Andrew Chow 2023-05-10 21:24:52
Published on: 2023-05-10T21:24:52+00:00
The process for adding a new maintainer to the Bitcoin Core project has always been made by existing maintainers. The decision is based on whether they feel there is a need for additional maintainers, and contributors are generally not consulted in the decision-making process. However, it wouldn't be appropriate to add a maintainer if many contributors disagreed with it. Previous maintainer additions have varied from being private announcements to public calls for volunteers. Over time, there has been more public participation in the process, and nominations are now discussed during meetings and left open for longer to get more discussion. If someone disagrees with how the project operates, they are free to leave and start their own fork that is run in a way that they think is appropriate.The decision to not add Vasil Dimov as a new maintainer was due to concerns expressed by other contributors who reviewed his work and were uncomfortable with him being a P2P maintainer. Additionally, some contributors and maintainers were uncomfortable with his responses about how he would merge things. In contrast, ryanofsky was considered a good fit for the project because of his in-depth reviews, well-reasoned critiques, and discussions about design decisions. It was claimed that he had a "maintainer attitude" towards reviewing, and his reviews were of high quality. There has been an effort to move towards more public discussion and collaboration on the project, although this was not initiated by one individual. Discussions have previously been taken to more private settings due to abuse towards maintainers and contributors, causing people to stop posting publicly.
Updated on: 2023-06-16T17:37:28.526233+00:00