Hi Glenn. Disclaimer: I met up with Martin today - he kindly made time to sign my GPG key so I can hopefully become a maintainer. We also talked about the current state of the NM system. * Glenn McGrath (bug1@optushome.com.au) wrote : > I think a few people on debian-devel might have comments on this. It's looking that way :-) > There is a faction of debian developers who are elitists and want to > close the system to new developers (numerous attempts have bee nmade by > diffferent methods) The two things aren't the same. Debian is, almost by definition, "elitist". Nowhere does Martin say he wants to close NM. He simply says that there needs to be a way of weeding out the people who think "ooh. I might apply to be a debian developer", go to the web site, find that they simply have to fill out their name and email address, and that's it! weee, we're in debian. A month later, they've forgotten totally why they did it, and the AM then has to contact them, twiddle their thumbs while the applicant doesn't reply, etc etc. I know I was expecting it to be a great deal harder to apply to be a maintainer. > These sorts of arguments are devisive and counterproductive to debians > goals, but i think this topic needs to satisfactorly be discussed and > _concluded_. > I think elitism is the only threat to debians viability. I think it's totally the opposite, to be honest - a surge of weaker developers will inevitably drive debian's quality down. >If the elitists > gain power their will no doubt be a manpower shortage as there will be a > lack of "worthy" new maintainers to do the work that the elitists want > to hand to other people. Do you really want "unworthy" new maintainers to start commiting packages? I don't. If someone isn't ready from the get-go to start making packages etc, then they aren't ready to apply. What has made debian so superbly good is that its developers are elite. It's not j.random.$USER putting this thing together. Everyone here has made a big commitment to debian. > The only way i can think that debian can protect itself from this > internal threat is through policy. > Sorry if this is going to cause a big thread, but it needs to be > concluded somehow, which i guess has to be through a dialog. <Snipped Martin's mail - enough people have already commented on the specifics> To resolve the current problem to everyone's satisfaction, i think there are a few preconditions that need to be met. (1) "Front Desk" needs to be tighter - if most people who haven't thought clearly about applying can be turned away there, leaving only those who are serious about their commitment, then the whole process will work a lot better - AMs won't be overloaded with people who need their hands held for their first package, etc. (2) If there are less people making it past Front Desk, the frustrations engendered by the rest of the queue will be considerably lessened, making the whole thing much less of an issue. So, how do we achieve this? I think, going back to the archive, that Julian Gilbey has actually said everything at this point that I would have said. So consider this a very strong <AOL!> to that message. cheers, -Thom
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