Re: Why is it so hard to get sponsors.....?
Here is a hopefully comprehensive, general answer to this question,
not specific to your situation:
Freeze:
During the release freeze, most Debian folks are focussed on getting
the release out. Fixing RC bugs, fixing important bugs, doing upgrade
testing, writing release notes, finalising the installer and live CDs.
All these things are a higher priority than sponsoring packages that
fix non-RC issues.
Volume:
There are not enough Debian contributors to package every piece of
software nor enough Debian members to sponsor every package made by
Debian contributors. This has always been the case and always will be
the case, there is just so much free software out there and probably
many more Debian contributors than Debian members.
Time:
Sponsorship is hard work and is a large time investment. Some Debian
members might not have enough "Debian time" to do it at all and others
might prefer to spend their time on doing work that they signed up to
do, like maintian infrastructure or packages they are a maintainer
for.
Specialization:
Debian contributors generally work on stuff they use or are otherwise
are interested in. This can limit the scope of software that gets
sponsored. With well-functioning teams, it can also mean that software
for a specific area is well covered with sponsorship, debian-med is a
good example. Unfortunately can mean
Preferences:
Different folks have different packaging preferences, some like cdbs,
some debhelper, some dh, some yada. Your packaging choices will in
part reduce the set of folks
Responsibility:
Sponsors take responsibility for your upload. Some folks might not
want to take this responsibility on, if they didn't check the upload
quite well enough and later it was discovered to contain malicious or
buggy code, it would be their fault. This scares some people away from
doing sponsorship. Some folks are scared of uploading new packages in
case it turns out the contributor will disappear after one upload.
Infrastructure:
In the past we had pretty poor ways of matching packages to be
sponsored with potential sponsors based on the above criteria. This is
improving with the new developments in mentors.d.n but still needs
work (AFAIK).
Emphasis:
>From memory, when I joined, sponsorship wasn't emphasised quite as
much as other activities in Debian, so less folks considered taking it
on at all. This may have changed already or perhaps we need to adjust
our new-member documents.
More:
We have had this discussion many times over the years, you might want
to look at the archives for this list to find out some more reasons
for the general lack of sponsors or for fleshing out the above
reasons.
Increasing your chances:
Keep trying! Don't stop after a month of not being able to find a
sponsor. Continue maintaining the package on mentors.d.n/etc and you
can increase sponsors confidence in your abilities and your
committment to Debian.
Relationships with sponsors. It is easier to get sponsored by someone
who already knows your work from another area in Debian, like core
software (dpkg/apt/gcc/etc), core QA infrastructure (the PTS, DDPO,
etc), the website or other areas. If you are able to, come to DebConf
and meet the folks who could potentially sponsor your packages.
Increase the quality of your package. Check it against various
checklists. Check it with various automatic tools like lintian. Look
at the PTS page for your package and at the links on that page. Do
reviews for other folks looking for sponsorship and ask them to review
your package in return.
http://wiki.debian.org/SponsorChecklist
http://wiki.debian.org/LucaFalavigna/NEWChecklist
http://ftp-master.debian.org/REJECT-FAQ.html
http://wiki.debian.org/HowToPackageForDebian#Check_points_for_any_package
http://mentors.debian.net/intro-reviewers
More tips listed in the FAQ:
http://wiki.debian.org/DebianMentorsFaq#Where_else_can_I_get_a_sponsor.3F
http://wiki.debian.org/DebianMentorsFaq#What_happens_if_I_can.27t_find_a_sponsor.3F
--
bye,
pabs
http://wiki.debian.org/PaulWise
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