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Re: Ideas about allowing Co-maintainer



On Thu, Aug 14, 2003 at 10:04:18AM +0200, Goswin von Brederlow wrote:

 > I have a crazy idea about when/how to allow co-maintainers for
 > packages and this probably becomes one big flamewar. But here we go:

 My idea is even crazier: what about if we stop behaving like children,
 and finally admit that if we are going to move fordward with this
 project we have to do something unheard of, like, working with each
 other instead of against each other?

 Some people don't like NMUs because sometimes they come at inconvinient
 times (like in the middle of a packaging rework) or sometimes they
 cause more work for the maintainer (the road to hell is paved with good
 intentions).  The solution for that is easy: if you can afford it (and
 many people in this project can), keep a CVS with your packaging work
 on a machine that anyone can reach.  Some time ago I moved my wmaker
 CVS from my box to klecker.  If you are in the "Debian" group, you can
 make commits to this repository.[0]  That way the maintainer work is
 not disrupted and you can coorperatively contribute to improving
 packages.

 > Some maintainer have packages with lots of bugs but are very
 > teritorial about the package. Getting them to allow NMUs or offering
 > them to become co-maintainer just ends in them screaming obsceneties
 > back (overstated for dramnatic purposes).

 That's because people have had bad experiences with NMUs.  Sometimes
 the maintainer is to blame, sometimes the NMUer is to blame.  But
 there's no point in pointing fingers.  Think of libc6 for example.  I
 don't follow the mailing list (neither Debian's nor upstream's), and I
 really have no clue how that package is managed.  What if I spot a
 simple yet RC bug and decide to fix it by uploading with a delay of 10
 days?  I mean:

 -- GOTO Masanori <gotom@debian.or.jp>  Sat, 19 Jul 2003 00:37:11 +0900
 -- Jeff Bailey <jbailey@nisa.net>  Tue, 15 Jul 2003 14:35:58 -0400
 -- GOTO Masanori <gotom@debian.or.jp>  Sat, 19 Apr 2003 22:01:40 +0900
 -- GOTO Masanori <gotom@debian.or.jp>  Tue, 18 Mar 2003 00:04:13 +0900
 -- GOTO Masanori <gotom@debian.or.jp>  Wed, 26 Feb 2003 18:44:08 +0900

 That's a sure sign for a bunch of lazy morons, isn't it?  Five uploads
 in the last six months?  Come on!  And just look the bugs for glibc!
 There are some _trivial_ things in there for godness' sake!  I'm going
 to make my upload with a 10 day delay, if if the maintainers care about
 the package they have _10_ _whole_ days to react.  What harm could that
 cause?

 > I propose that when a package has <X> open bug (or RC bugs) for a
 > reasonable long time without activity anyone can just declare
 > themself co-maintainer and do the work.

 And that will only buy you bad blood.  You might be fixing things in
 the short term but in the long term it's just not going to work.

 > That way 3 5 year old bugs would be as bad a 50 3 month old ones.

 (JFYI, a year has 12 months)

 > Let the flamewar begin.

 That's some attitude.  You'll get really far that way,

 Marcelo

 [0] Let this be an open invitation to anyone who cares about the wmaker
     package to feel free and fix whatever needs fixing.  At the moment
     I don't have any non-commited work at home, whatever you find in
     the CVS repo is what's current.  A couple of releases are not yet
     in the repository because I had expected to finish the work in
     progress a bit sooner, but RL got in the way.  As long as you tag
     and properly document your work, I'm game.  Just drop a note to
     wmaker@packages.debian.org if you want to start something big, to
     avoid duplication of work and stepping on each other's toes.



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