[Haskell-cafe] Hackage feature request: E-mail author when a package breaks

[Ketil Malde]

Yitzchak Gale <gale at sefer.org> writes:

> Gregory Crosswhite wrote:
>> could [Hackage] have a feature where when a
>> working package breaks with a new version of
>> GHC the author is automatically e-mailed?
>
> This would be nice. However, there would have to be
> a way for it to be turned on and off by the author.
> (Spam is not nice.)

This is where it stranded the last time, IIRC.  That sentiment makes me
a bit uneasy; so you are the official maintainer of a package on
Hackage, but you do not want to hear about it when it fails to compile?

To me, this raises the question whether you should take on the
responsibility as maintainer at all.  Ideally, I think Hackage
should avoid being a dumping ground for non-working code, and I think
the key to high quality software is having active maintainers for each
package.  If the author of a package is unwilling to accept failure
reports, I suggest she could leave the Maintainer field blank, or fill
it with a dummy value (e.g. "unmaintained").

-k
-- 
If I haven't seen further, it is by standing in the footprints of giants