Re: long term goals of debian membership
> That ideal sitation would have been "Ben, start doing some work, get used
> to how things operate around here, and once you prove yourself to be
> competent, get other developers to be signed references, and you get to be
> a maintainer".
>
> I would have gladly started work, just as I have done in other similar
> sitations within other projects. Debian is the largest project I have
> worked in, and was the easiest to infiltrate^Wjoin. I think that's a bad
> thing, because if I was not a good person, I could have caused lots of
> damage, possibly unknowingly to others.
And this would be _AFTER_ you'd waited in the ~1 year NM queue?
Think about it, you'd be pretty damn pissed off.
> > > If the person doesn't need an @debian.org address, and they don't need
> > > access to Debian systems, then they don't need to be a developer. If all
> > > they want to do is send patches, file bugs, or just maintaine one package
> > > of a program they author, then they don't really need to be a Debian
> > > developer.
> >
> > How are they supposed to maintain any packages, regardless of who authored
> > them, if they can't upload fixes to those packages? Do everything through
> > a sponsor? Neither of the people who were at various points going to
> > sponsor my packages ever made an upload. I have no gripe, they were
> > presumably busy, so I waited until I made it through NM and did it myself.
>
> Then revamp/reorg the sponsort program. I really think it could be better
> deault with in a group effort, rather than a single developer->mentor type
> thing. Let's not put down such a worthwhile program in support of "open
> the doors and let everyone in".
>
> > If I am supposed to feel guilty that one of the two packages I maintain is
> > my own program, well, I don't.
>
> Good, you shouldn't. However, if that was your only package, and you never
> intended to do anything else but that one small thing, then I would hope
> that you wouldn't expect to take on the role of a Debian developer, with
> all it's responsibilities and trust, just for that.
Can you define to me the responsibilties?
They're not saying "I want to be king Debian package maintainer, but I only
want one package". They have their own section, they keep to themselves,
they do one thing and do it well, they're not overloaded, they're happy, and
will probably ease into more. They shouldn't have to be the GNU Emacs of
developers. I just think you're wrong on this, being a Debian maintainer
doesn't imply that you _have_ to take up x amount of packages to be
effective; you'd probably be most effective on one or two packages.
Now, if all the Debian maintainers were getting a flat rate, then I can see
that ...
But, as it stands, the Debian people are volunteers, so it's _their_ time.
They want to put in hours upon hours upon hours upon hours to maintain a
huge amount of packages, and be so overloaded they can't do it well at all?
Sure, that's their problem. They don't want to be like that, specialise in a
couple of packages, and try to do them well? Sure! If Debian followed this
logic, we'd have a lot of niche people, all specialists in the package they
maintained (not that they took it up because they felt they had to), Debian
would be great (not that it isn't now).
I'll admit that this is brilliant in theory but probably would never happen
in practise.
Take, for example, breakages in woody. If every maintainer only had a couple
of packages or so each, (s)he would notice breakages pretty much
immediately. But if said developer has shitloads of packages, in many and
varied categories, how would (s)he know in time? Hell, with all these other
packages and releases to do, all these bugs to chase up ...
d
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