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Re: Bug#573745: Please decide on Python interpreter packages maintainership



On Mon, Jul 05, 2010 at 11:50:50PM +0200, Sandro Tosi wrote:
> > (And
> > once the release team had finally found an slot for python-defaults
> > pointing to 2.6 in unstable Matthias did an upload quite fast - as it
> > should be.)

> ah so the maintainership is reduced to a "please release a new
> package" button? :) what you describe it ALL that he did for the
> transition. I don't call it helping, I call it passive blocking it,
> personally I'd expect more from him: are you really fine with a
> "superb" maintainer not "wasting" his time in collaboration and with a
> debian-python environment that it's forced to do all the work because
> it really cares about python? I'm not, sorry.

There is a pattern here of asserting that, where Matthias' maintenance of
Python has not met the expectations of others in the Debian Python
community, it is because he does not "care".  This does not encourage the
named developer to value working with you.  Consider that Matthias has been
a Debian developer for over 12 years.  If you had been involved in a
community project for this long, how would you respond to people claiming
that you don't care about the quality of your contributions to it?  You
might not respond with silence, but I'm pretty sure you wouldn't respond
favorably.  And you probably wouldn't regard those people as colleagues that
you want to work more closely with.

When I see people making such a claim about other developers, I give less
weight to their opinions.  Particularly in the midst of a discussion about
whether Matthias is willing to accept comaintainers on his packages, my
immediate reaction is:  of /course/ he doesn't want to have /you/ as a
comaintainer!  And as a result, I'm less inclined to think you're a suitable
maintainer for the package.  What the python packages in Debian need above
all is people who will rise above the past conflicts instead of perpetuating
them with an equal but opposite bias.

That means, for instance, that I would make an unsuitable comaintainer for
Python, because I'm very, very bitter about how the Python policy
discussions have played out in the years since the BoF in Mexico, and there
are more people to share in the blame for that than just Matthias.
Fortunately, the TC doesn't have to be wise enough to be good maintainers
for the python package, though - just wise enough to pick someone /else/ to
be good maintainers...

-- 
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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