Re: Thoughts on Debian quality, including automated testing
On Wed, 21 Dec 2005 12:23:32 +0100, Thomas Hood
<jdthood@82-171-132-56.dsl.ip.tiscali.nl> said:
>> Mandatory teams for packages seems ridiculous to me.
>> Lots of packages are so small that having to arrange a team for
>> them, even if it is only the effort to set up and subscribe to a
>> team mailing list, is wasteful. Not everyone likes to work in a
>> close team, either, and we shouldn't exclude them.
> I don't think that it is ridiculous to require that every package
> have a team behind it---i.e., at least two maintainers.
While opinions are fine, I personally do not share yours in
this regards.
> First, if someone can't find ONE other person willing to be named as
> a co-maintainer of a given package then I would seriously doubt that
> that package (or that person) is an asset to Debian.
Hmm. The question is, can I find someone whose judgement I can
trust, who has the time to spend on it, and who would not require me
to change my methodology to the extent that would make managing my
packages to burdensome for me.
Well, so far, I have not gotten co-maintainers. I am not sure
I am going to spend a whole lot of effort to garner any, anyway, since
I am not yet convinced that diluting responsibility for my packages
would be a net win for my users.
And if you are saying that you consider me and my packages not
to be an asset to Debian, than all I can respond with is amusement.
> Second, putting packages in the custody of a team makes it easy for
> a tired maintainer to relinquish control.
When I get that tired, I'll follow the established mechanisms
for relinquishing control. I do not need to carry bureaucratic
baggage for years in order to facilitate letting go when I need to.
> If the team works via an alioth project then there are many
> benefits. Code is kept under version control and thus backed up; the
> change history can be easily viewed by anyone; the mailing list
> becomes an easily browsed history of package development. Team
> maintainership is working very well for some other distributions.
None of this requires a team. (take a look at
http://arch.debian.org/arch/private/srivasta before you think of
refuting this statement).
> I would support requiring team maintainership because TM will be
> beneficial in almost all cases and making it a requirement it cuts
> off a lot of useless discussion.
Silly requirements like this would just be crying to be
flouted. I, for one, have absolutely no intention of listening to
such.
Personally, a board is made of wood, and bureaucratic
ossification and dilution of responsibility when doing a task is
someone elses responsibility don't always improve matters.
manoj
--
Why use Windows, since there is a door? (By
fachat@galileo.rhein-neckar.de, Andre Fachat)
Manoj Srivastava <srivasta@debian.org> <http://www.debian.org/%7Esrivasta/>
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