Bruce,
> What happens now is that someone says they want to work on X, and the
> community tells them that Y might be working on it, and Y gives us a
> status.
>
What happens now is:
A starts working on X.
3 months pass
B comes to hackers, spends hours reading the archives, doesn't find X
(because they know it by a different name), comes to -hackers and asks
"Is anyone working on X?"
B waits for 2 weeks without an answer and repeats the question.
Hackers E, F and G reply "yes, someone is but I don't remember who,
search the archives for keyword X"
B searches again, finds original post.
B e-mails A and gets no response.
B finally offers to take over X
Hackers M, L, and N say "sure, but read the archives for spec info"
B reads more archives for several hours.
There's a LOT of unnecessary overhead in that process: having a simple
web app that lists who claimed what todo and when, any status updates if
they've voluntarily provided them, and links to archive discussions, we
could reduce the above to a 3-step process making it vastly easier for
new hackers to get started.
To be clear: I'm not trying to solve a problem for existing hackers, for
whom the existing system works fine. I'm trying to solve a problem for
two groups: new hackers, and users who want to check the plans for new
features without combing through the archives.
I'll also point out that having an annotated TODO with regular updates
would lessen the pressure we get from some parties for a roadmap.
--Josh