Rethink maintenance

[sils]

@akx @etanol I'm surprised we don't have this issue yet: this repo isn't too well maintained and I don't see it getting better in the near , can we make PR and issue templates indicating that and figure out how we would do "new maintainer onboarding"?

[RuRo]

@sils @akx @etanol So is this project currently unmaintained? If it is, you really should advertise this fact. Add a

(https://img.shields.io/maintenance/no/2017)

badge or something like that to the PyPI description and the README.

[RuRo]

Also, @benselme @blagasz @kvesteri @mitsuhiko you are members of the python-babel GitHub org, so I am assuming, that you can maybe shed some light on this issue.

[blagasz]

On my end, I participated in the number spelling effort and a basic rule engine based implementation is mostly ready, some additional testing and integration will be needed, but I did feel that the project is not very much owned since some years. Honestly, I also do not have the time to take ownership apart from occasional contribution.

[akx]

@RuRo This project is being maintained in a support mode by yours truly. The latest patch version (for #782) was released 28 days ago, and the last minor version (2.9.0) in early December 2020.

I'm sorry I hadn't had the time to review your PR yet.

[akx]

@RuRo Additionally, one reason more significant changes haven't been enacted is #569 – there are so many projects relying on unspecified versions of Babel I'd rather err on the side of caution.

[RuRo]

Just to be clear, I didn't comment here just because you didn't answer in my PR. I just thought that based on the number of the open issues/PRs/commits vs the size of the user base of this package, it seemed suspiciously quiet.

I don't mean to imply that you or anyone else owes the community to support this package. You are maintaining it out of the pure goodness of your heart, and we are thankful for it.

I just think that if you feel that you don't have the time/motivation/whatever to maintain this package, then maybe it's a good idea to grow the maintainer team. You know, just in case, pybabel is actively used by a lot of big projects and doesn't really have any drop-in replacements AFAIK. It would be a shame for it to slowly die due to maintenance issues.