Re: Bug#750135: Status of #750135 (Maintainer of aptitude package)

[Sam Hartman <hartmans@debian.org>]

>>>>> "Tollef" == Tollef Fog Heen <tfheen@err.no> writes:

    Tollef> My suggestion is basically to say yes to Manuel: Make him
    Tollef> the maintainer of aptitude and ask the Alioth admins to
    Tollef> reinstate him as an admin, removing Daniel.  Manuel is
    Tollef> clearly interested in working on aptitude and seems to be
    Tollef> interested in having other people contribute as well.  Given
    Tollef> aptitude currently has a lot of bugs and is an important
    Tollef> package in the Debian ecosystem, I'd like to move forward on
    Tollef> this fairly soon.

I'd vote your proposal above further discussion, but I think we have
much better options on the table.

Christian's proposal seems a lot more positive to me.
What I hear from his proposal is that Christian and Axel act as leaders
for the aptitude project.  They work to recruit technical talent, work
to  make sure the project is vital within Debian.
They create an environment where Daniel can be involved if he likes, and
can foster a culture of open cooperation, pushing back againstDaniel if
his behavior is unacceptable.

Several technical projects at MIT had adopted this model when I was last
working there.  It worked well, because you had a way for people to work
on both the technical and non-technical aspects of the project.  The
person making the technical architecture decisions needed to work well
with the project leaders, but perhaps did not need to be the same person
growing and managing the development community.  For similar reasons we
as Debian separate the TC from the DPL.

A major advantage of this approach is that it can happen from within the
aptitude project.  Christian has the technical authority to implement
this.  He's asked for review of the social authority, but we could
support this way of the aptitude project reorganizing itself without
needing to override a maintainer or exclude daniel from making technical
contributions if he reappears.

So, I favor that over your proposal, but would favor your proposal over
status quo.