Re: New-maintainer - STOP THAT SHIT
On Wed, Jan 17, 2001 at 08:02:07AM +1000, Anthony Towns wrote:
> > > You assume there are other people.
> > Yes, I do, although it doesn't do anything to my argument. You, on the other
> > hand, assume that there are no other people, and this I find rather
> > unlikely.
>
> I've seen a lot of people whom I'd consider plausible DAMs assert that
> there must be heaps of qualified people who can help, and I've seen none
> of them say "me for example".
I am afraid you won't see someone saying that until the right people
acknowledge that there indeed is a problem and that they indeed need help
and that they are seriously considering people who volunteer. Nothing is more
disappointing than volunteering for a task and being ignored. Been there,
done that.
It speaks for possible volunteers that they don't make such offers lightly.
It is a decision that changes what you work on in Debian quite a bit.
Also, some people might volunteer, but only under special circumstances.
It's not always useful to say "I volunteer, but only if this or that
happens", the right input has to come at the right time.
But those are only speculations. They would be among the reasons why I
would not volunteer right now, even if I wanted to do that job. Maybe I will
volunteer for this job at some later time, but certainly not in the current
situation. Other people have other reasons, I am sure.
> I've also seen a lot of people say "hey, I can run adduser, I'll be a
> DAM if you need help", and go on to further underestimate the purpose
> of that roll.
Of course that happens. We know that such people won't become DAM too soon,
and the majority doesn't want that, so why do you mention it? I am not
counting on those people when I say that I think there might be enough
people who want to volunteer.
> I have seen James say there are a few AMs he'd be happy to see help him
> out as DAMs, but that all of them have too many other things to do to
> have enough time to help.
As this is just something that James said at some time, this is nothing that
helps here in this discussion. We don't know who and when he asked, and we don't
know what those people replied. We don't know why they replied in such a
way. There is no transparency in the process "james says to some he'd be
happy if they'd help". If James could have found someone suitable this way,
that would have been great, and by far the best solution. But it hasn't
happened, so it is probably time to try out something different.
An important thing I should say but haven't yet is that what annoys me is
that you and other people are anticipating the result. You say, simplified,
"there is nobody usable going to volunteer, so there is no point
in asking". If a serious attempt were made to find someone, and if you'd
leave room to possible volunteers to bring in their ideas, and if this would
still not lead to a solution, well, then there'd be probably no reason to
complain. Note that it is very important that such an attempt is
transparent, and continued. It's no good in a group like Debian to ask half
a dozen of developers you know well in private. Something you do in private
has seemingly not happened, unless we can see some resulting effect.
It is also important that this is not a one time offer, and if nobody
volunteers within 48 hours the offer is withdrawn. The offer should exist as
long as there is need for it.
> > Laying the (even perceived) responsibility of a whole part of Debian into
> > the hands of a single person has lead to resignation before (Christian
> > Schwartz wrt Policy). It was one of Manojs excellent intuitions to not let
> > this happen again in this area,
>
> You'll note that, even so, policy hasn't been updated since August last
> year, five months ago.
You'll note on the other hand, that we hadn't a single flameware about it,
if I am not mistaken. Everybody knows that they could help out if it is
really urgent for them.
> I'm not sure policy is
> the best example of an efficiently maintained package.
Efficiency is not my main concern at all. My main concern is that we, the
community, might be *locked* in a serious inefficiency (also taking into
account the ongoing mailing list traffic, disappointment of new maintainers,
etc, and, last but not least, stress on James for carrying the weight).
Thanks,
Marcus
--
`Rhubarb is no Egyptian god.' Debian http://www.debian.org brinkmd@debian.org
Marcus Brinkmann GNU http://www.gnu.org marcus@gnu.org
Marcus.Brinkmann@ruhr-uni-bochum.de
http://www.marcus-brinkmann.de
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