Long mail follows... in probably bad English On Wed, Dec 31, 2003 at 03:41:12PM -0500, Nathanael Nerode wrote: [many thoughts about NMU and MIA and related stuff] Hi Nathanael. Always interesting to read your mails on the various mailing lists, especally because your approach of joining this project is so different from mine but we are around here for a similar time now (and we're both no DDs yet). When I say different I mean that you're seeming to try a top-down approach. You're seem to very active in tracking RC bugs and MIA maintainers and pointing with your forefinger on people you think they deserve it[1], while I'm interested in partly the same fields (QA for example) but going more for a bottom-up approach: Doing small things first, learning about history, traditions, people and then going on to other jobs. Both approaches have their advantages and disadvantages. This said as an introduction for a more general answer to your thoughts in the parent mail. Your preferred viewpoint seems to be that of an organisator, an optimizer. You want to make quicker, better releases of Debian[2] and you're trying to point out people that are hindering this goal. A valuable contribution but I just wanted not to let stand your opinion alone (And some of the following statements must not actually contradict your position). Two things (that are fully my personal opinion) we/you should not forget: a) Debian should be about people making good software together not about good software made by some people. So lets not forget to have fun while we're doing it (if there are any DDs out there that _only_ do this here because they are paid for it, I feel with you) This leads to the conclusion that pissing of people is seldom the best way to do things. Nearer to a release this perhaps changes slightly... This leads to some more conclusions: 1) QA work is often the decision between kicking someone out or getting someone back in. The first is easier in most situations but not always better. 2) You often can't motivate someone to work by qouting guidelines or executing procedures but by appelling to their honor as maintainer[3]. 3) If you try to judge one thousand different people from different countries, backgrounds, motivations with some simple guidelines you will make faults. Better let the faults not be worse for the project than doing nothing. etc. b) Only a maintainer (or a group of maintainers) can maintain a package. This sounds simple, but there is one simple conclusion from this: More NMUs are not generally better than few. Let not forget this: A NMU is for small fixes that have big consequences and that have to happen soon. Nearly every effort that is spent to resolve an issue that causes a package to be NMUed is better invested than the effort to NMU it. So your demand for more people tracking maintainers and packages is good[4] (but see a)) but your demand for more quicker NMUs is IMO flawed (Note: I talk about the "normal process" here not freeze processes or related things). A NMU often only cures a symptom, not a problem. A NMU does nothing for the improvement or the "evolution" of a package, it just fixes a single symptom of brokeness. So our goal should probably not be to promote more NMUs until a package is orphaned but to make the time shorter and the process more reliable until a package is orphaned (and yes, this partly contradicts with what I said in a), this is what it makes complicated) Summary: Our goal should not be "good software" but "good software we created together because we love to make good software and it is fun to do[5]". And lets enhance the maintainance of packages, not the speed of NMUs (to repeat: yes, this is _not_ the same). [1] sorry if this is a German only symbol [2] who doesn't want this? [3] but we need perhaphs better procedures for the case where this doesn't help [4] and to be one of them in the future is one of my long-term goals as a (not-yet-)DD [5] together with hard work... Gruesse, -- Frank Lichtenheld <frank@lichtenheld.de> www: http://www.djpig.de/
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