Junio C Hamano [off-list ref] writes:

Linus Arver [off-list ref] writes:

quoted

I realize that such an idea is beyond the scope of a simple MAINTAINERS
(or similar) file that's checked into the Git code repo, but I think
it's worth stating as a thought experiment.

As we already have agreed that neither of us care the exact format
of the file (yet), regardless of how a contributor, who is about to
send a patch, will find an area "maintainer" to help the patch along
the process, it is far more important to discuss and decide what
responsibilities and authorities are expected of these maintainers.

I'm starting to think that the new responsibility should be as small as
possible, and build from there. So the smallest bit of (initial?)
responsibility expected of the new roster of maintainers could be
"maintainer must respond to CC pings on the list within 7 days".

For those who have more time to spend on the project, the next rung of
responsibility could be "maintainer is available to review patches
outside of their domain of expertise if no one else has reviewed the
series in 7 days".

I haven't thought too much about the "authority" part yet.

The development community has been fairly loosely organized so far,
but I'd like to see responsibility and authority spread a bit more
widely yet still not too thinly to compromise the project integrity.

Agreed.