Re: Bug#799748: ITP: ember -- 3D client framework for the WorldForge project
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Simon,
You bring up some very good points and those are very fair questions.
On 09/22/2015 12:45 PM, Tobias Frost wrote:
| Am Dienstag, den 22.09.2015, 08:19 +0100 schrieb Simon McVittie:
|> After those problems have been corrected, will you continue to
|> maintain
|> ember and the rest of the WorldForge-related packages in the longer
|> term, and ensure that they do not become a burden to other
|> developers? I
Yes, that is my intention.
|> ask because in the 16 years that ember was in the archive, it had a
|> total of 7 uploads, of which 2 NMUs and at least 3 maintainer uploads
|> were to fix release-critical bugs. That isn't a particularly good
|> ratio
|> of maintainer's time used : other people's time used.
That is very true, and I completely agree with you that Debian would be
unsustainable if all (or even a significant fraction of) packages had
this kind of track record.
|> This is not intended as a veto - hopefully you'll have more time for
|> it
|> than its previous maintainers - but I felt that before it is
|> reintroduced, I should specifically point out that every time a
|> package
|> fails to build from source or is otherwise RC-buggy, and every time
|> it
|> blocks a transition, it is creating work for people other than its
|> maintainer.
Yes, very true. I always try to do a quality job on anything I set my
mind to. I can't promise that all my uploads will be perfect, but I am
aware of the work that falls on others when a package is sub-standard
and I do not like others to have to do my work for me.
|> While team maintenance is of course A Good Thing, I'm not sure that
|> having "the games team" as a co-maintainer mitigates this very much;
|> the
|> wide range of game technologies and styles maintained by that team
|> mean
|> that it is relatively unlikely that a random games-team member knows
|> how
|> to fix and test a random games-team package (or indeed has any
|> interest
|> in that random package).
True, and the WorldForge packages are not exactly simple. I believe that
I can only safely count on Games Team support if an urgent fix is
required, the fix is simple, and I'm temporarily unavailable for
whatever reason. Obviously, anything more is a bonus. :) That's not
meant to be disparaging to my fellow Games Team members but I know that
they are all busy maintaining their own packages as well. I don't want
these packages to be a burden on the Games Team just like I don't want
them to be a burden on Debian resources at large.
|> Based on the history of ember and its dependencies, it seems fairly
|> likely that developers with an interest in the archive as a whole (QA
|> team, release team, ftpmasters) will respond to any RC bugs that
|> aren't
|> fixed promptly by just removing it again.
Well, I aim to maintain them in such a way that this does not become
necessary. :) It's not exactly a secret that I've had a strong interest
in Debian's success since I started using it in...oh, late 90s sometime.
Recently I have been trying to give back and I hope to apply to be a DM
soon... maybe a DD eventually, if my contributions are deemed
worthwhile. ;) I mention this to clarify that my involvement with the
WorldForge packages is not just a passing whim but part of my commitment
to help Debian overall.
I hope that assuages your concerns!
| Hi Simon,
|
| Maybe I chime in..
| I'm in contact with Olek since a while regarding the ecosystem around
| ember and the wf libraries. I also volunteered to sponsor his work and
| the first uploads are currently being prepared.
|
| Yes, the former maintainer was, lets say, problematic, a kind of 51th
| shade of MIA. (Responding to pings, promising actions soon, but in the
| end nothing happened) This was the main blocker here and Olek didn't
| want to offend the maintainer, despite that the packages were de-facto
| unmaintained.
| So this is the right point of time to get those packages a good
| restart, with Olek as maintainer, even if I see another 51th-shade of
| MIA in the way -- down the road. (Therefore I would be interested in
| general guidance how to handle such pseudo-MIA or selective-MIA: Cases
| where the maintainer is active, but still nothing happens at least on
| certain packages, even after prodding.)
|
| I'm confident that Olek will maintain the packages adequately.
| If not, removal bugs can still be filed, but I prefer to give him the
| opportunity to show.
|
| --
| tobi
Thanks for the support, Tobi! :)
- -Olek
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