Hello,
since DebConf[1], me and a number of other people[2] have been working on
making it so that we can see and credit all the people who contribute to
Debian.
Debian is vast, and many people contribute to it, not just Debian
Developers[3]. We value and encourage all kinds of contributions[4], but
we currently fail to make that work visible, and to credit it.
* "Debian Contributor"
We should have a new name/hat/status/position/label in the project so we
can think and talk about everyone who contributes to Debian, regardless
of the kind of contribution they do.
"Debian Contributor" seems to be a good name[5].
To become a Debian Contributor there is no special process or approval:
when you contribute to Debian, you automatically become a Debian
Contributor.
If you read this mail, you probably are a Debian Contributor already,
and you likely have been for some time. The difference is that if you
previously didn't have a visible role in Debian, now you do.
* The list of Debian Contributors
The list of all known Debian Contributors is here:
http://contributors.debian.org/
The role of the list is to make people and their work visible and to
credit it.
The list will never be fully comprehensive, but it will try to be be the
best effort Debian can possibly make to credit everyone.
The site codebase is managed by the NM Front Desk with the help of other
contributors[6], but the data on the site is managed independently by
each team in Debian. Any Debian Developer can log in the site with their
web password[7], configure a new data source and start sending updates.
The list of data sources configured in the site is here:
https://contributors.debian.org/sources/
there currently are two real ones: wiki.debian.org and nm.debian.org;
one being worked on: Debian Security Tracker; and some proof of concept
ones that are leftover from site development, waiting to be replaced by
proper data feeds by their respective teams.
Tip: click on any table header in the site to sort the table by that
column.
* Submitting data to the site
Data is sent to the site via an HTTP POST of form data with an attached
JSON file. The technical details are here[8].
I created a Python module[9] to simplify the process, and it comes with
a few examples[10], but there is nothing python-specific in the process,
and generating and posting JSON should simple enough in any reasonable
language.
Any Debian Developer can log in the website with their web password[7]
and create the data source. Any Debian Contributor can implement data
submission process, they just need to know the submission password that
has been configured for that data source.
If you are not a Debian Contributor and would like to implement data
submission for some team, just start working on it and you automatically
become a Debian Contributor :)
By all means do your worst and start submitting data to the site.
If you are a member of a team and you think you should be credited
somewhere in Debian, just write some code to collect contribution
information about your team and send it to contributors.debian.org
If your team misses a nice activity page, implement a data source for
contributors.debian.org and you get it for free. It worked for
the Wiki[11] and for nm.debian.org[12] :)
* Technical details
The site's development roadmap and status is here:
https://contributors.debian.org/contributors/site_status
Here is a TODO-list with simple, actionable items, and is the starting
place to get involved with the development team:
https://wiki.debian.org/Teams/FrontDesk/DcSiteDevel
* What now?
Please build data sources for your teams[8][10].
If you are interested in helping further, start at the newmaint-site
devel mailing list[6] and at https://wiki.debian.org/Teams/FrontDesk/DcSiteDevel
Ciao,
Enrico
[1] http://www.enricozini.org/2013/debian/debian-contributors-right-after-debconf/
[2] I lost track of all the conversations I had, so, ironically, I
am not able to credit everyone. The archives of [6] are a good
start, though.
[3] or Debian Maintainers, or Alioth committers or Bug reporters, or
Wiki contributors, or Translators, or Mailing list contributors, or
Sponsored uploaders, or Package reviewers, or Language reviewers, or
Conference organizers, Events people, or Press people, or System
administrators, or Services developers, or...
[4] http://www.debian.org/intro/diversity
[5] And so we solve one of the two hard problems in computer science,
the other being cache invalidation, and off-by-one errors.
[6] http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/newmaint-site
[7] https://wiki.debian.org/DebianSingleSignOn
[8] https://wiki.debian.org/DebianContributors
[9] http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=nm/python-debiancontributors.git
[10] http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=nm/python-debiancontributors.git;a=blob;f=README.md
[11] https://contributors.debian.org/sources/view/wiki.debian.org/
[12] https://contributors.debian.org/sources/view/nm.debian.org/
--
GPG key: 4096R/E7AD5568 2009-05-08 Enrico Zini <enrico@enricozini.org>
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