[RFC] DEX - merging patches from derivatives into Debian
Inspired by conversations here, and with various people in person and on
IRC, Stefano Zacchiroli and I have set up a new Alioth project called DEX:
http://dex.alioth.debian.org/
...with an appropriately primitive website. :-)
The premise of DEX is that by forming projects and teams around specific
work to be done with derivatives (e.g. merging patches), we can build
momentum and help individual contributors accomplish more. Our hope is for
DEX teams to include both Debian developers *and* developers from
derivatives, working together on common goals.
The first DEX team is the Ubuntu one:
http://dex.alioth.debian.org/ubuntu
and a few developers have signed up to it already. We've set a modest
initial goal of clearing a queue of (years) old patches from Ubuntu, merging
them into Debian where appropriate. We hope to build on that with larger
and more ambitious projects in the future, such as reducing the ongoing
delta between Debian and Ubuntu.
Of course, there are already a number of teams which are working
cooperatively between Debian and Ubuntu, and we want to continue to support
that. We hope that DEX will help to cover "everything else" where there
isn't a collaborative system in place.
If this experiment is a success, we hope that in the future there will be
more DEX teams and projects associated with other derivatives.
We'd like for DEX to be closely coupled to the derivatives front desk, so
that we can share lessons learned (e.g. by improving documentation
resources), cooperate on mentoring, and so on. As such, we'd like to use
this mailing list for DEX discussions if that's OK with people here. If the
traffic grows too much or something, we can always decide to change it
later.
Please let us know what you think, and speak up if you'd like to get
involved!
If nobody hates the idea, we'll make a more formal announcement beyond this
list and invite more participation.
--
- mdz
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