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Re: NM frustrations...



On Thu, Feb 22, 2001 at 10:11:41AM +0100, Nils Lohner wrote:
> 
> Debian is made up of only volunteers.  They donate time and effort.  If 
> people annoy them, what reason do they have to continue to work?  Most 
> people do volunteer work because they enjoy it, and if the work 
> environment ceases to be enjoyable, they (obviously) have less 
> initiative to work and may think about stopping etc.

Sure, and I'm trying to donate *my* time and effort to the project, but
*one* person has the power to make it very difficult for me to do that.
I am still working on the project, still donating my time and effort.
It is, however, very frustrating when I can't upload my packages to fix
a bug, but must rely on somebody to "sponsor" me.  All because *one*
person has decided that there's something about me that isn't important
enough to warrant an account.

> The gist of this thread has been to follow the procedure and provide 
> the info your DAM needs, and if that doesn't work, maybe see if another 
> DAM could be assigned.  Or go to the NM list and ask what the problem 
> is, or offer to help improve the process.

I *did* follow the procedures, to the letter.  My part of the
application process was completed and forwarded by my application
manager over 2 months ago.  I can't "see if another DAM can be assigned"
as there is ONLY ONE DAM!  There's a single person who has the power to
choose who gets in to Debian and who does not.  And he's got a power
trip.  I've seen people begin the new maintainer process at some point
in the past 2 months and have everything completed (including the DAM
account creation phase) 3 days later.  Whereas here I am, having
completed everything on my end of things (including active maintence of
one new and one previously orphaned packages) and I have to wait.  I did
nothing wrong.  There's just one person who doesn't feel like there's
any compelling reason to create my account any time soon.

> 
> Please remember we're all volunteers and (re)act appropriately.
> 

Sure, the DAM is a volunteer.  He volunteered to take on the
responsibility of managing Debian developer accounts.  He is not being
very effective at handling this responsibility.  Take a look at some of
the statistics at http://nm.debian.org.  On average people must wait
over 30 days for their accounts to be created.  Some people have had to
wait over 200 days.  On the other hand, other people have had their
account created after *2* days!

> Debian's purpose is to put out a high quality Linux distro.  And 
> despite all the flaws that Debian may have, we seem to accomplish it.  
> If that's what you're interested in helping with, and there's an 
> unresponsive DAM in the way, then IMO you're not trying very hard.  
> There are many ways to help.  Hop on IRC and ask what you can work on, 
> and I think you'll get more responses than you know what to do with.

I have tried *very* hard.  I have contacted everybody I can think of
(including the DAM).  I have maintained my packages and passed them on
to a sponsor to upload them.  I have taken part in the IPv6 development
effort in Debian (one of my packages is part of this).  I have taken
part in discussions of various mailing lists.  I *am* helping.  But
watching other people fly past me in the DAM queue is *very*
frustrating.  It's not making me question helping Debian, but it is
making me question whether or not Debian *wants* my help.

noah

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