Reply at bottom On गुरुवार 20 डिसें 2018 09:50 म.पू., Pirate Praveen wrote: > On 12/18/18 7:29 PM, Rhonda D'Vine wrote: >> If you don't come up with arguments of why to change it, yes, there >> is a lack of pushing. :) > gitlab has a popcon score of 95 and there are people who prefer a > native debian package over the omnibus package provided by upstream. > There is at least one person willing to take the effort and gitlab > package is in very good shape (no rc bugs, no security issues, latest > upstream version in unstable and personal stretch-backports repo of > its maintainer). No one sane would recommend using unstable in a > production setup. Using stretch-backports is already used in > production setups including many debian services. It provides a good > buffer over unstable and security updates are provided by closely > tracking upstream versions who provide security support for 3 months > to a major release. It is a core service used by debian itself and it > is a shame we don't have a place for it in official debian that can be > recommended. >>>> Sure, but volunteering doesn't mean changing everything along the >>>> way. That doesn't build trust, and that's one of the core points of >>>> that permissions, because it comes with responsibilities. >>> As I said before, there was no communication on the reason for not >>> accepting. The bug you mentioned to keep out of testing was filed >>> after I requested to fast track gitlab. Also one reason pointed out >>> in earlier discussions was "I have too many packages already". >> And that still holds true. I pointed out that you maintain more than >> 20% of all packages within the backports archive. I feel very uneasy >> about that fact, and you want to introduce even more. >>> Can you accept npm, which is useful outside of gitlab and there was >>> already a request on this list for a backport? >> Is this another package which just has you behind? I'm really worried >> about this approach. Please try to get more people involved in that >> huge effort. Even though you mentioned you are paid to work on this, >> attention shifts, workplace environments shift, and then we are >> suddenly with over 20% packages within the backports archive without >> maintainers. That's an extremely high load to distribute under >> volunteers, and your statement of "If that situation changes, we can >> surely think about alternatives" isn't helping: > I have asked in javascript team to respond if anyone is interested to > join this effort here > https://alioth-lists.debian.net/pipermail/pkg-javascript-devel/2018-December/029849.html > >> I want to have this thinking process started now before we are >> hitting the dead-end street's wall. Besides all, deities forbid, but >> if the situation changes you might not be part of that "we" anymore >> and thus won't be involved to clean up after yourself. So given that >> you are driving up a critical point in the archive maintenance work >> efford I ask you right here right now to do the sensible thing and >> come up with a plan that convinces me how things might work out when >> that happens, before I process any further new package coming from >> you. And I very much hope that you can relate to that concerns and >> are willing to find a solution. > I have also asked gitlab about their commitment to continue funding > even if I stop working on it. I have also asked them if they are open > to funding a team instead of just me. I will update here once they > respond. >> Thanks for your understanding, > It was a bit demotivating as my idea of debian was to be able to work > on anything you want as long as you can keep the packages in good > shape and you follow the policy. If anyone cannot continue maintaining > packages, other could step up or it gets removed, fully or partially. > Many of the packages that I maintain are useful for the whole team and > not just gitlab (for example npm, rails, webpack, rollup). Packages > like npm and rails, I became and uploader. Packages like webpack, > rollup made it possible for a lot of people to join javascript team > and maintain. If not for the work on these core packages, they would > not be able to easily maintain these packages. When more than one > person depends on these packages, and there are new contributors > joined because of the existence of these package, the likelyhood of > those packages maintained increases. I have also been very much aware > of the fact that I cannot maintain all of it alone sustainable and I > have spent days and days (hours and hours) mentoring new contributors. > Look at the sponsored uploads here > https://qa.debian.org/developer.php?email=praveen@debian.org Also look > at the number of people I advocated > https://nm.debian.org/person/praveen Some packaging workshops were of > 7 days long and many more such workshops of duration one or two days. > And countless hours mentoring online. I even started mentoring a new > person just yesterday night. Having to state all these after doing so > much is painful. This was not the kind of respect I expected from > fellow contributors. I almost decided to not upload to backports > again. Thanks Praveen >> Rhonda > Many of the statements discussed in this thread till now, I have heard them before about Praveen. Praveen owns a lot of significantly large amount of packages in Debian, and I understand that to any person who has not interacted with Praveen will obviously find this a bit of strange situation. I get the points and Rhonda has raised of being uncofortable with the fact Praveen owns a large part of the packages, and in case Praveen looses interest most of those packages will be left unmaintained. And Rhonda is not the first one to raise these concerns. Just to bring in a few points into the discussionhere. 1. Unlike many of DD's , Praveen does this full time and part of his work is sponsored by Gitlab as it is useful for them and Debian both. 2. Although he is doing a lot of packages, but He has also been actively encouraging people in getting started contributing to Debian. 3. Many of us who have been mentored by him have become DD's and contribute to Debian in various ways. 4. And we together along with him are maintaining packages like Gitlab, Diaspora and many others from years. You can check some of our efforts at http://debian.fosscommunity.in/ 5. Through a native Gitlab package we run our own gitlab instance at git.fosscommunity.in I find multiple people asking me about why some of the very essential packages in Debian are lacking behind in versions in Debian, and I tell them that we need more people to pick up the tasks in hand, as well as that the dependency lists for packages like npm, rails, webpack etc. is huge. which needs a lot of work from people. And Praveen and many of us helping him up with that work, even though the amount of work seems like an unsurmountable mountain. As the Debian project we should we should be willing to look into ways of how we can facilitate someone who is willing to contribute that amount of work. Instead of making them stop or trim down the amount of work that they do. My point being here is that even though packages owned by him is huge, He is not alone in the effort and some of us co-ordinate with him and I am sure he will put people in place as and whenever if he decides to not to maintain packages anymore.
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