Re: KDE2 - nice demolition job ...
On Wed, 13 Sep 2000, you wrote:
Thank you for a cool response - I was really hoping that would eventually
happen. I realize I stirred up a hornets nest; I did it intentionally
because otherwise nobody seems to notice and I think that at least some of
what I originally wrote (goading aside) is important. You happened to pick
out probably the most practically important one with the issue of the
protocols for accepting new voluteers. There are some other points in
there that are more abstract political points that don't have simple
answers - but they are the sort of thing that really won't change at all
if they remain hidden; perceptions are not always apparent to the
percieved. I have been watching people turn and be turned away for quite
awhile now and I really thought it was worth a little trouble to point it
out. I _like_ the debian project - why else put myself up for attack to
point out an embarressing fact? Really much easier to just go to bed ...
< very valid points (alpha etc.) excerpted>
> To go on and on about the organisation of Debian and its shortcomings (in
> your opinion) benefits no one and alienates those who may want to listen
> to your ideas otherwise. I always think it's a shame when things digress
> to the level that this exchange has taken. If possible, can you (and
> everyone angered by the original message) take a deep breath and
> relax? I, for one, would like to hear some rational ideas for solutions
> for the problems that you've encountered. Perhaps, then, we can learn
> what we can, implement what we think will work, throw out what we think
> won't, and put this behind us so we can get some more work done.
Exactly. This is in fact the purpose of voicing opinions in
an open forum.
Personally, I would like to make one proposal - I hope other
people will have others but an obvious practical problem is the
process of accepting volunteers; its clearly a bottleneck:
a. Assign more people to process applications - kind of
self-explanatory.
b. Establish at least two teirs of contribution - people who are
interested in helping with less technical aspects need not be subjected to
the same screening process as package maintainers. So if, for example
somebody says "hey, could I help with paperwork or the website or
something ?" they can be easily accepted to work on something. Voluteering
should not be a full time job.
c. (optimally) Rewrite the pages that explain how to apply and
give a clearer and more complete description of tasks available and what
level of expertise each requires.
d. (optimally) simplify the protocols for applying.
Maybe we can start a constructive discussion now.
> I'm sorry that the new maintainer process is such a headache. While I
> have nothing at all to do with NM (none whatsoever), I will offer an
> apology for any hassles that you've encountered while in the process. It
> can be a mind-numbing experience, from what I hear, and one that's been
> the point of endless arguments and flame wars in the past.
On behalf of others ( and myself) I thank you for the kind words too - but
really lets hope this gets something moving :).
> > > I have written some - in fact I sat down and wrote a whole system to help
> > > organize and automatically produce a documentation UI specfically for
> > > debian packages; it was summarily dismissed without, as far as I can tell,
> > > anyone even looking at it.
>
> I'd be interested in looking at it. Honestly, this is the first I've
> heard of such an effort.
hmmm, er, shit, well i hope this doesn't look like a pr scam now ... but,
anyway you can grab a .deb from unilinux.sourceforge.net; just go in the
anonymous ftp, there is a package called ddoc-0.4.2_all_.deb (i think)...
newer than the release ... its in development and right now it thinks it
depends on deb-make _and_ debhelper ... mumble, mumble ... better go to
bed now ...
Erik
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