Re: long term goals of debian membership
On Tue, 5 Dec 2000, Ben Collins wrote:
> > 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.
>
> Ok, you've gone on for 4 or so emails about this, and it is reallt getting
> annoying because you are harping on "# of packages" as a guideline, when
> it isn't.
I'm not a developer (yet), but...
> Being a developer means (in no certain order of priority, and this is my
> personal list):
>
> - You take part in discussions important to the Project (DPL, policy that
> you have knowledge of, future directions for the project, etc...).
I do this, either when I understand enough of what's going on, or it
actually pretains to something I'm doing or even just interested in. I
just figure (half-humourously) if I stick my neck out enough, either
someone's going to chop my head off or I'll stretch enough to have a
better grasp of what's going on.
> - You keep up with policy as it pertains to your package. Meaning you make
> an active effort to follow policy and not wait for bug reports before
> you change them.
Trying to; school, bronchitis, AND having my main two computers needing
reinstallation about the time about the time I'm doing the chapter on
"reliability and availability" has been making it hard.
> - You actively track bug reports on your packages, fix them, close them,
> reply to them, etc...
To be honest, I'm more of an 'associate developer' on my pet package,
doing user interfacey stuff that doesn't seem important to the core
developers, but still not anything "Debian-specific".
> - You try to help out in other areas as time permits, with things like
> documentation, ports, boot-floppies, installer project, RC bug list,
> helping other developers who may need advice in your area of expertise.
Did boot-floppies (LS-120/zip support; testing), working part-time on
cross-compilation (need to re-ask on -devel ^ -policy about dpkg-cross)
and possibly spend about equal time asking and answering questions on
#debian. Heck, I even have a shoddy attempt at an HOWTO. ;)
> This list is by no means complete. The thing is, we cannot know that a
> person will do these things if we give them maintainership quickly, and
> without some sort "credentials" (current activities in the project,
> etc..). If all a developer will ever do is maintain their one package, not
> subscribe to any of the lists for developer discusssion, never "poke his
> head into the project", then they might aswell just use a sponsor.
>
> Maybe later that developer can decide that they do want to become a
> developer, but I don't think there is any case where developership is
> needed immediately, before doing anything.
>
> IMO, we need an organized sponsorship program that gives priority to
> packages that are on the QA list (orphaned).
Sounds good to me. Perhaps set up a second, shorter queue (though with the
same level of checking) for those who actually pick up AND THEN START
MAINTAINING an QA-list package?
; Trying to inject more level-headed, objective discussion into what has
; become nearly another insult-fest. :/
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