Re: New-maintainer proposal
On Sun, 17 Oct 1999, Jules Bean wrote:
> Dale Scheetz wrote:
> >
> > On Sun, 17 Oct 1999, Wichert Akkerman wrote:
> >
> > >
> > > I will post the proposal for a new new-maintainer procedure to the
> > > debian-project list shortly, If anyone is interested in joining the
> > > discussion (or on any other non-technical discussion) please subscribe
> > > to this list. You know the procedure :)
> >
> > Please keep this on devel as well. I don't have time to add another list
> > to my chores. We need one (1) list that can be subscribed to, on which
> > important traffic like this can be discussed. Multiplying the lists that
> > _must_ be subscribed to, in order that I may be a contientious maintainer
> > is simply crap, that fractures the group and keeps some segment of the
> > maintainership uninformed. This lack of an informed membership is, in my
> > estimation, a primary reason for all the confusion and conflict that is
> > currently comming down about such things as new-maintainer.
>
> I don't see any logic to this argument.
The logic is quite simple. The more information you put onto lists that
"people need not subscribe to", the more clueless those people become.
>
> If you subscribe to -project and -devel, then you won't see any increase
> in the amount of mail you have to deal with. You'll simply see the same
> mail split over two lists. On the other hand, it will hopefully be
> better partitioned (making it easier to deal with if you filter your
> mailing lists into separate folders, which I recommend), and people who
Multiple mailing lists are not the solution. A properly threaded mail
reader is adequate to the task of separating out the crap, without
fracturing the communications medium.
> are not interested in 'project politics' can avoid subscribing to
> -project.
These "people" you refer too are Debian developers, right? Why would a
person expect to be a developer and not need to know about such things as
"project politics"
OH, and by the way, we already have a list for project politics, called
debian-vote. Why isn't that the correct forum for a proposal that
potentially every developer may need to vote upon?
>
> Most (um.. this is a guess, I don't know) maintainers *aren't*
> subscribed to -devel as it is, so you it certainly currently fails its
> goal as a place where important traffic can be discussed.
The fact that developers can _not_ subscribe to devel is a _large_
mistake.
>
> Also note that some people may not consider this important traffic.
Then they should not have accepted a developer position with the Debian
project.
> Some people may be content to trust that Wichert and the -project
> readers will sort out the new-maintainer issue, while they get on with
> developing...
>
And then they find out something was "done behind their backs" and we have
another slash and burn flame war.
I'm afraid that we have allowed developers to abrogate their
responsibilities to the project, in the name of reducing the "cost burden"
of membership. This just hasn't worked in any way toward improving the
communication between developers. On the contrary, every time we split off
yet another mailing list, the confusion increases.
>
> Jules
>
> (Painfully aware that this thread has every chance of growing huge and
> wasting space with almost pointless discussion...)
If it seems a pointless discussion, then we are _really_ in trouble.
Discussing better communication, when so many of us are bemused and
confused by the various "activities" going on, can never be considered
pointless. It does no good to insist that incoming maintainers produce
evidence of their cluefullness, only to push them into a situation where
they can not keep up with the commings and goings of the project.
There is no cabal, only Zule!
Luck,
Dwarf
P.S. I was tempted to reduce the cross posting to -private, as that is
where everyone is required to subscribe, but I have been chastized before
about inapropriate traffic there. Should we trim the -dev CC?
--
_-_-_-_-_- Author of "The Debian Linux User's Guide" _-_-_-_-_-_-
aka Dale Scheetz Phone: 1 (850) 656-9769
Flexible Software 11000 McCrackin Road
e-mail: dwarf@polaris.net Tallahassee, FL 32308
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