Re: Developer Status
First of all, I want to express my support for this idea.
I think it can be improved. Specially, I think that having so many
statuses is confusing. And I'd like the system to highlight the
relationship with Debian, instead of the actual rights. Ideally, this
would be defining two classes (yes, and then we can proceed to declare
the war between classes, and take the winter palace, etc..) one that
defines a full member, who can vote, be delegate, etc, and a
contributor which cannot do that, but it's acknowledged anyways with
an email address (I'd say a @debian.org address), an entry in LDAP,
etc.
That way, then you can grant people the right to upload, log in to
machines, etc, independently of the class status.
For example, I think that a NM should be given login privileges
because that's many times needed to solve bugs.
About this particular message in the thread:
On Thu, Oct 23, 2008 at 07:41, Julien BLACHE <jblache@debian.org> wrote:
> And also that feeling you seem to have that you are above the lot of
> mere mortals that we, DDs without delegations, are.
[...]
> Pretty much the only thing in your proposal I agree with is the bit
> about getting DM under proper controls.
Certainly you sound like you're above the rest of the mere mortals who
aren't DDs.
> I'm afraid you're going to need more than "very few questions from
> T&S". I think it's important that DMs know their stuff, for we have
> quite some crappy packages in the archive already and we don't really
> need more of them.
Can we stop blaming the problems of Debian on DM, sponsored uploads,
etc? I've seen *plenty* of crappy packages and crappy methods from
full-fledged DDs Until the day that every DD has to pass the same
tests, and revalidate it periodically, this argument has no grounds.
In my case, for example, I had to do a lot more than get a phone call
from elmo to get my DD status. Heck, having an upload sponsored is way
more work than that!
> And that I totally disagree with. Being lintian-clean doesn't tell
> much about the quality of the package, and tells exactly nothing about
> the quality of the packager.
>
> I think we've had some examples of clueless DMs and even clueless new
> DDs in recent times (proving that even a full T&S might not be
> enough). Do you want more of that, or less of that?
Do I really want to know all what's needed in T&S to maintain a few
perl or python packages? What about a silly C application that has no
complex issues? The answer is no, I don't need that.
And I might not need some of that stuff until the day I start
packaging a shared library. I will need some of that stuff the day I
have to do a transition, or perform some debhelper tricks, etc. But
people can start working, feel acknowledged and encouraged, and LEARN,
instead of being pressured with all the NM stuff at once.
What is your big fear? That a newbie uploads a broken libfoo-perl,
which has a popcon of two and no reverse-deps?
> I have a problem with non-technical persons voting on technical
> issues, or issues having technical implications for the developer
> body. I have even more of a problem with non-technical persons leading
> a technical project.
Then we should ban non-lawyers to vote on anything related to
copyrights, patents, etc. Modifying the constitution should be
protected from incompetent non-lawyers too!
And what part of being a DPL can't be done by somebody who knows the
project, does hard work, and is respected but hates packaging stuff? I
can think of a couple of examples that could even win that election...
> I am against this part of your proposal. Voting rights should be
> coupled with proper understanding of the Project at large, including
> the technical stuff, which is, after all, the base of this Project.
Understanding the project doesn't mean understanding dpkg, there are
things much more important, because, remember... above all we are a
group of people, and maybe this mail shows that you should not be
allowed to vote on social issues?
--
Martín Ferrari
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