Bug#436093: Please decide on the "ownership" of the developers reference
* Raphael Hertzog (hertzog@debian.org) [070805 14:52]:
> I'm sorry Andreas decided to escalate this so quickly instead of trying
> to get things solved smoothly.
This wasn't quickly. You said "sure feel free to ask [the tech ctte]".
So, I read that as "go ahead" - and BTW, we need a decision on who is
the maintainer. You said more than once to me that you're not going to
accept me as the lead maintainer. And this is one of the cases where I
believe a decision helps to avoid further anger, because than we both
know what the situation is.
> I'm glad Andreas decided to take care of the document as it definitely
> needed someone. However in that process he also removed all previous
> contributors from any official role without consulting anyone (at least
> not me). Here's the commit where he removes me from the Uploaders:
> http://cvs.debian.org/ddp/manuals.sgml/developers-reference/debian/control?root=debian-doc&r1=1.23&r2=1.24&diff_format=h
That's now 2.5 years ago or so - at that time, I discussed it with the
people who were doing lots of QA (I'm not sure how good it is
documented), and they told me that the developers reference could be
basically seen as orphaned. You were at that time quite inactive, BTW.
I'm not arguing that the commit message was the best one I ever used.
> Once I discovered the change, I didn't say anything.
So, you accepted that I became the lead maintainer of this document.
Good.
> The document had always been collaboratively
> maintained and I never expected any trouble for me if I decided to invest
> again some time in this document.
I'm not against other people becoming more active. Please read the
README-contrib - it tells:
| Do not commit patches to the developers reference yourself unless
| authorized to do so. Patches need to be finalized and common opinion
| before they are applied. This is even true if you happen to have
| cvs access for other reasons.
I don't understand why you just don't write mail before, or speak with
me, but just go ahead committing even though I ask you not to. You are
not accepting that I currently have the main authority on the developers
reference, that is the core of the problem.
> I've been very active working on this document a few years ago (2002-2003) and
> despite the updates, the fixes and the rewrites, I am still the direct author of
> a sizable chunk of the document.
I'm not argueing to keep you out. But even as a former main author,
you should (even if only for politness!) ask the current main author and
maintainer before committing patches - especially as this has been
explicitly requested more than once.
> BTW I'm French, Andreas is German, none of us are native english speaker.
> So as far as "quality" goes, I suppose he speaks of content rather than
> formulation.
Oh, I usually ask good english speakers for proofereading if I have
doubts. Even that I'm not a native english speaker doesn't mean I'm
unable to commit high quality english texts. :)) (I used Frans quite
often for that, or other people I know well.)
> And here I have a problem with him having full control over
> the content.
I don't consider that the Developers Reference should have *my* opinion,
but the opinion of Debian at Large, even if I disagree with that. I see
it as part of my job to give other people enough review chances to make
sure the Developers Reference matches Debian at Large.
If you have problems with my way - ok, we can speak about it. But you
cannot just hijack the Reference because you disagree with my way.
> So, to sum up, I ask the tech-ctte to rule in favor of co-maintenance of the
> package, exactly like it has always been done with this package in the
> "pre-aba" times.
You mean like prior to 2.5 years ago, where nobody felt responsible, and
there was noone going through the bugs, and checking for a basic quality
of that document?
As said, as lead maintainer I'm happy accepting contributions from other
people, and if I have seen that these contributions are of good quality,
I'm happy to ask people to commit themself - people know I'm quite open
to that (and/or even handing over lead maintainership to someone else
one day, if someone has more time and energy for that than I have). But
not by hijacking.
Cheers,
Andi
--
http://home.arcor.de/andreas-barth/
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