[python-ldap] Future of python-ldap.org - an introduction, and a plan

[Petr Viktorin]

Hello,
As you might have heard, Michael Ströder decided to step down from 
maintaining python-ldap.

Michael, I would like to thank you for the years of maintenance and 
development. Python's LDAP story would be nowhere near where it is now 
if it weren't for you.
I hope to work together again in the future.

Speaking of future: in a few days, SourceForge will shut down its CVS 
hosting. And as CVS is fading into obsolescence, Python 2 has a few last 
years of bugfix-only support left. The python-ldap project now needs 
something more than just new development and bug fixes.

That's where I can help, so I've volunteered to step up as a new 
maintainer, provided that we don't find anyone better.
I can't, of course, hope to replace Michael. I don't know that much 
about LDAP. My contributions will be mostly limited to the 
administration side of things.

As for my background – my day job is Python maintenance for 
Fedora-derived distros. I've been involved with pyldap, a fork of 
python-ldap that adds Python 3 support.
I hope to bring Python 3 support into python-ldap, as that's the mission 
that originally brought me to this project.


My current plan is:

# Move to Git
Git is currently the most popular open-source version control system, 
and also one I'm familiar with.
The pyldap project has a branch of history imported from CVS, so 
conversion should not be a problem.

# Move to GitHub and Pagure.
GitHub (https://github.com/) is nowadays the most popular Git hosting 
provider. Its one big disadvantage is that it's closed-source and 
proprietary.
Pagure (https://pagure.io/) is another Git hosting site, which is 
open-source. Hopefully that will work for those opposed to GitHub.
(And plain old patch e-mails still work, of course.)

# Moderate this list
Starting today, I'm a moderator here at python-ldap at python.org. I hope 
to keep it a friendly place.

# Move the documentation to Read the Docs
https://readthedocs.org/ is quite a nice service for hosting 
Sphinx-based documentation. Let's put the docs there.

# Move the website to Read the Docs
If possible, I'll merge the website into the documentation, and point 
python-ldap.org there.
If that doesn't work out for any reason, I'll search for another 
reliable free-of-charge hosting service for static webpages.

# Merge changes from the pyldap project
The Python 3 fork was, from the start, intended to be merged back if at 
all possible. If I get to maintain python-ldap, that's what will happen. 
If possible, I'd like to do it as a series of reviewed changes rather 
than import everything wholesale.

# Continue maintaining
After this I will, as my time allows, merge reviewed code, help with 
Python- or Git-related problems, moderate discussions, and generally 
make it possible for code authors and reviewers to do their work.


If you have any comments or concerns, or would like to help, please 
speak up!


-- 
Petr Viktorin