Re: Your opinion on Debian Maintainer status
On 2013-03-17 14:50, Moray Allan wrote:
On 2013-03-17 00:13, Raphael Hertzog wrote:
while reviewing the vote that introduced the Debian Maintainer
status
in 2007 (http://www.debian.org/vote/2007/vote_003_tally.txt) I
noticed
that Lucas voted in favor and that Moray voted against it.
Moray, why did you vote against?
I'll follow up to explain this soon, but I need to check a couple of
things, in case I'm misremembering details from 2007.
Part 2 of the full-disclosure answer:
Does that still hold or did you change your mind in between?
To all, what's your opinion on the DM status? Has it been effective?
I am glad to have all the DMs as Debian contributors, and am happy to
have helped a few on their way to DM status.
But I still wonder if they should be automatically given project
membership if we trust them to have the technical rights of the DM
status, or should at least have a very easy fast-track to becoming
members, rather than, as too often currently, being discouraged from
becoming members.
While aj's original proposal
https://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2007/03/msg00074.html
left open the possibility that DMs might be allowed to vote, i.e.
project members, that's never been taken up (perhaps because one of the
arguments used most strongly by the GR proposers was that some people
genuinely didn't want DD status). In fact we've moved in the opposite
direction.
I am not happy that:
- People have gone for DM status because it's easier to get, but then
not gone on to become project members, in many more cases than because
they actively don't want to have full rights.
- People have been told not to become project members but to be happy
with DM status, if they don't strictly need the full technical rights
that currently come with being a member.
Nor am I happy that, though it's comparatively less of a worry to me
compared to those two:
- People are regularly told that they should get DM status before
applying for NM.
The original GR said,
"- Applicants in the n-m queue may choose to apply to be a Debian
maintainer while finishing their application or waiting for it to be
accepted."
(I.e. it was taken for granted that people can enter the membership
process first, and become a DM in the interim if that takes a while.)
and
"- Individuals may apply to the n-m process, and pass through it
without becoming a Debian maintainer at any point."
(I.e. no one would be forced to become a DM before entering the
membership process.)
While those statements were guaranteed there only as initial
conditions, introducing DM status as a prerequisite for, or instead of,
entering the NM process, and telling people to be happy with DM and not
become project members, seem much greater changes to me than the
original introduction of DM status, and I'm not happy that this seems to
have happened without a wide discussion, and in fact with many members
being unaware of the changes.
--
Moray
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