Re: Re-thinking Debian membership - take #1: inactivity
On Thu, Jul 23, 2009 at 11:52:11PM +0200, Bernd Zeimetz wrote:
> But I know that there are/will be DDs which do infrastructure stuff only, and
> rarely upload packages. Such DDs should never be regarded as MIA, of course.
I am not convinced of this. Infrastructure contributions are necessary and
valuable, but we don't admit people as Debian Developers on the basis of
infrastructure contributions, nor to work on infrastructure; they become
developers to work on the distribution. I don't think the requirements for
continued developership should be so different from the requirements for
initial NM acceptance.
In particular, I'm concerned about the prospect of developers in such a
circumstance coming to view themselves as "infrastructure people", and not
as package maintainers, which I think would have a negative impact on the
relationship of DDs as peers.
I would draw a distinction here between infrastructure vs. documentation and
translation, btw, in that in the latter cases, the question of trying to
integrate these contributors into the NM process has been brought up
numerous times, and I've never heard anyone argue that non-DD contributors
to infrastructure should be recognized for their work by being made full
DDs. I think all the arguments against doing that (and I can think of a
number of them, perhaps you can think of others) are also arguments against
people remaining DDs when they only do infrastructure.
--
Steve Langasek Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS
Debian Developer to set it on, and I can move the world.
Ubuntu Developer http://www.debian.org/
slangasek@ubuntu.com vorlon@debian.org
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