On Thu, 20 Dec 2018 09:50:15 +0530 Pirate Praveen <praveen@onenetbeyond.org> wrote: > >> 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. I am a bit surprised that those packages haven't already got a mailing list as a maintainer, even if there is only one person on that list. The extra workload (not just for the packaging team but the churn in the archive) of uploading all those packages just to change the maintainer field when someone does join the effort should have been anticipated. I'd recommend that this is implemented for each new upload as soon as practical. (I do this for LAVA which uses GitLab internally but has a slower release cycle with the ability to support packages in testing and stable.) It can also help to add to planet.debian.org and describe routine free software activity on a regular basis (weekly, monthly?). A number of people who are doing Debian work as their paid employment already provide such reports as blogs. It might not be possible in all situations, but sometimes a work domain can be used in packaging email. Together, two or more of these three steps would have made it obvious that this is more than a volunteer effort in a few hours of spare time each week and the blog posts could have included all the news about NM. It's self-publicising, I know, but it is much better to put the information up before there are misunderstandings - whenever the work of anyone in Debian moves a bit out of the "few hours a week in my spare time" volunteer model which covers so many contributors to the project as a whole. It's natural to project fears and worries about the estimated workload onto the typical volunteer model and start screaming. With a bit of context, in advance, things get much easier, for everyone involved. I think the small effort of updating a blog would be very useful for all efforts related to GitLab and packages like it. It may well be useful internally to update line managers etc. too. Personally, I think having a mailing list in the Maintainer: field is essential for anyone uploading more than a dozen or so packages - no matter how much time is available for the work. It only becomes more important when those packages have short release cycles. -- Neil Williams home@codehelp.co.uk
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