[development] adoption for 'abandoned' modules?

[andrew morton]

On 1/19/07, Ray Zimmerman <rz10 at cornell.edu> wrote:
> Another possible option is something that is used at my university
> for mailing list owners. Once a year I get an e-mail saying that I
> have to "renew" it (i.e. basically, acknowledge that I still exist
> and have a need for it) within some window of time or it gets disabled.
>
> I'm obviously not suggesting projects be removed or disabled, but
> such an infrequent maintainer ping like this could be helpful. I.e.
> once a year you get an e-mail saying, click this link within the next
> 2 months to confirm your desire to continue as owner of the following
> modules. The destination page could have checkboxes for the projects
> you currently maintain. Anything you don't renew goes up for adoption.
>
> One attractive feature of this approach is that it ensures that a
> maintainer is actually still reachable at their contact address.

I think this is the best idea proposed so far. A regular email ping
and a method for maintainers to specifically abandon a module sounds
great.