IMPORTANT: Please clarify plugin confusion and update stale repos to current ones

[codeconsole]

What is the purpose of grails3-plugins when there is grails-plugins and gpc?

https://github.com/grails3-plugins https://github.com/grails-plugins https://github.com/gpc

Seems highly misleading that with Grails 5 being out, a grails3 repository would have a more current version of a plugin.

For instance, I did a documentation update here https://github.com/gpc/grails-mail only to realize later there is a https://github.com/grails3-plugins/mail that is forked from gpc? Why not keep gpc current and, more importantly, why at least not update the gpc repo README.md to tell people to go to grails3-plugins? and why even have an organization (grails3-plguins) for plugins that has an old version # in it when grails-plugins and gpc exists? Or why not push the forked repositories back to their originals?

Lastly, and excuse my ignorance and laziness if this is already explained somewhere, how does one go about releasing a community maintained plugin. I've hesitated in maintaining a few repos (commentable and tagable) due to not knowing what to do after tagging a new version.

[puneetbehl]

Why not keep gpc current

We are planning to consolidate plugins from all active plugins in a single place. Meanwhile,I think it would make sense to use grails3-plugins/mail as the current as that is the active repository compared to others.

why at least not update the gpc repo README.md to tell people to go to grails3-plugins?

gpc is not maintained by us. But, I agree the README.md in the gpc repo should tell people to move the new in grails3-plugins. I think you can send a pull-request for same.

why even have an organization (grails3-plguins) for plugins that has an old version # in it when grails-plugins and gpc exists?

I was not involved in the decision to create grails3-plugin, grails-plugins, and gpc organization. But, I think it grails3-plugins is created after the release of Grails 3, whereas grails-plugins organization is the oldest one for plugins. The idea behind gpc is explain in the post Grails Plugin Collective Proposed

why not push the forked repositories back to their originals?

I don't think it is a good idea because they are moved under the organization grails3-plugins or grails-plugins so that it is easy for us to manage them.

Lastly, and excuse my ignorance and laziness if this is already explained somewhere, how does one go about releasing a community maintained plugin. I've hesitated in maintaining a few repos (commentable and tagable) due to not knowing what to do after tagging a new version.

We have published a blog post on how you can publish plugins to Maven Central. https://grails.org/blog/2021-04-07-publish-grails-plugin-to-maven-central.html. I think people should move the repositories which they are maintaining under their own organization/account from gpc.

[sbglasius]

I have closed all issues on the gpc/mail-plugin, merged the PR and archived the repository.

[codeconsole]

I like the general idea of gpc. Seeing other projects where plugins get forked and eventually die is never a good thing.

For instance, take a look at countless Apache Cordova plugins that have died and could have just been taken over in a community repo. Seems like Capacitor learned from a lot of phonegap/cordova mistakes and went the community route https://github.com/capacitor-community

With the gpc, anyone can really just take over rather than endless fork confusion. If the plugins are just going to be left for dead, why not let anyone willing just take over on them? Always good to capture new community involvement.