Re: Community membership

[Ben Collins <bcollins@debian.org>]

> 
> 3. Memebership freeze occured due to problems processing new applicants,
> in some cases processing taking months.
> 
> >From the above i concluded that a new simpler membership process would
> be good.
> 

Membership froze because the new maintainer team felt we were letting
people into Debian too easily. In other words, maintainers that were MIA
in a few months, leaving us with unmaintained packages, and other issues.

I think what you are meaning to say is, make it easier to participate.
Which does not neccesarily mean make them a developer. I agree with this
100%. We have the means to do such things right now, however we are not
making it very apparent. On our web site if you go to the section on how
to help Debian, you are immediately presented with the new maintainer
process, thus giving the image that _this_ is the only way to help Debian.

So I think our problem is just a superficial mistake in our presentation
on the web site. If we change that, and dedicate an immediate section to
how one can help without becoming an official developer, then we will get
a lot more people involved.

Ben

-- 
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