Re: GR: welcome non-packaging contributors as Debian project members
On ti, 2010-09-14 at 17:53 +0900, Stefano Zacchiroli wrote:
> The Debian project therefore invites the Debian Account Managers to:
>
> * Endorse the idea that contributors of non-packaging work might become
> Debian Developers without upload rights to the Debian archive. These
> new developers shall be recognized as Debian Contributors (DC).
I support Zack's proposal, but with a caveat.
I do not like the introduction of yet another class of person developing
Debian. I propose we call everyone with voting rights in Debian a
"Debian Developer" (development not being restricted to coding and
packaging). Voting, not uploads, being the fundamental right of a member
of the project, and the most important reward we can give for someone
who works for Debian.
I also feel we don't need to implement a technical barrier against
uploading. I don't think technical skills are the relevant thing when it
comes to deciding whether someone should be allowed to upload or not.
The important thing is whether we trust them or not. If we don't trust
them, they shouldn't be any kind of member in the project. If we do, we
should trust them to not intentionally make a mess. Mistakes are not
that important: everyone makes mistakes, and we need to be able to
recover from them anyway. But this is perhaps a bit radical of an
opinion in Debian right now.
(I was under the impression there was a hypothetical path to becoming a
DD for people who do not want to do packaging work. I am sure I heard
someone say they had gone through that path years ago, but perhaps I
remember wrongly.)
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