On Fri, Jan 27, 2012 at 10:40:50AM -0800, James Adcock wrote:
My concern would that when "the crowd" finds "real" problems in a PG text, such as remaining scannos, or coding of txt70 or html files which clearly falls nowhere near close to current PG standards, then there needs to be a well-sanctioned way to fold these "real fixes of real bugs" back into the "official" PG source code. Otherwise the crowdsourced stuff, while it may be better than what PG "officially" provides, simply continues to spin out of control. You've got to have a way to "merge back" eventually that which gets learned, fixed and improved by the crowd.
Agreed. Note that the errata process we use currently is not very efficient, but it *does* result in updates to the hand-posted files and all derivatives. So, there is already a mechanism in place (perhaps it will be improved). The challenge, which you correctly identify, is to build in the feedback loop so that there is continual improvement to the "main" source(s), not just derivatives. This is where something like a traditional source code development cycle might apply. If you have branches and trunks or the equivalent, then there will be a smaller number of people who can commit to the main branch, but anyone will be able to fork. Getting more people than the few existing WWers able to commit to the main branch will be a major benefit. I favor some sort of meritocracy-based system for getting access to such elevated levels of responsibilty. -- Greg