Re: Debian needs more buildds. It has offers. They aren't being accepted.
Martin Michlmayr <tbm@cyrius.com> writes:
> * Andreas Barth <aba@not.so.argh.org> [2004-02-12 09:45]:
> > Goswin is definitly willing to pass through n-m, and is at "waiting
> > for DAM"-stage for too long time now.
>
> Okay, let's look whether this assertion is really true. So much has
> been said about this without actually considering any facts, so let me
> briefly describe what really happened. Most of the time, NM has in
> fact waited for Goswin rather than the other way around.
>
> Let's start with the NM summary for Goswin,
> http://nm.debian.org/nmstatus.php?email=brederlo%40informatik.uni-tuebingen.de
>
> Advocate Check Passed on 2000-08-25
> Application Manager Assigned emschwar assigned on 2000-10-27
> ID Check Passed on 2000-12-12
> Philosophy and Procedures Check Passed on 2000-11-07
> Tasks and Skills Check Passed on 2000-01-11
> Application Manager recommends to DAM Approved on 2000-01-27
>
> So clearly he has been waiting since January 2000, right? (4 years).
Actually since before 1998 on and off for reasons beyond my control
(the NM process getting scratched, mail between the AM and DAM getting
lost) and in my control (me taking a sabatical from the NM
process). The ID used in the ID check is the same as on my first
application and that expired 1998.
> Well, no. First, you'll note that he was assigned in August 2000, so
> the January 2000 is clearly a typo and should be 2001. And in fact,
> the AM report was sent "Sun, 28 Jan 2001 14:09:21 -0700" so that makes
> sense (I'll correct the dates on nm.d.o in a bit).
The dates are all garbled after the database burned down. You can't
trust them too much anymore. The out of orderness of the dates also
results from points being done out of order or being redone. e.g. the
Advocate Check and Tasks and Skills Check I initially never did. I
think those dates are from when the NM step was created and were never
set when I redid them later.
It is correct that they don't follow chronologically after each other
but as to being correct otherwise I can't say anymore.
> So has Goswin been waiting since January 2001? Again, no.
> Unfortunately, the AM report was not complete at all and so I asked
> for some more information (something pretty common back then,
Also between the report and you checking some new steps where invented
like the Tasks and Skills check. That certainly was missing from the
inital AM report.
> unfortunately, and it still happens sometime). I sent Goswin some
> answers on Wed, 9 May 2001 11:49:57 +0100. Unfortunately, I didn't
> receive any answers, so I pinged him.
>
> 1st ping: Sat, 12 May 2001 23:01:03 +0100
> 2nd ping: Thu, 7 Jun 2001 10:43:32 +0100
> 3rd ping: I talked to Goswin in IRL at LinuxTag in July 2001, and he
> was clearly aware that I was waiting for his answers and
> he said he'd respond soon. Well, he didn't.
> 4th ping: Tue, 16 Oct 2001 14:05:44 +0200
>
> I'm sure there were pings in 2002 as well, but I'm not looking that up
> now.
Yes, and I allways admitted that I gave up on the NM process
inbetween. That was already the third run on becoming a DD, first one
ended with the NM process being redesigned and the second one with my
informations getting lost somewhere between AM and DAM. I had exams
around that time and wasn't generally active for debian during those
and a bit pissed at having to restart again. The spare time I had I
spend on other things since not being a DD wasn't a big problem back
then. No my best decision.
> On Sat, 1 Feb 2003 16:43:10 +0100 (after waiting for 2 years for
> Goswin) I got bored and said I'd reject is application if he wouldn't
> complete it soon. I'm actually surprised I waited so long. These
> days, I remove uncompleted applications much earlier and ask them to
> re-apply when they have time/interest to finish it. Anyway, Goswin
> said he had lost my original mails and asked for the questions again.
> I sent them and he finally responded on 01 Mar 2003 10:33:25 +0100.
> (And to top this, I got a mail on 08 Mar 2003 15:51:35 +0100 asking
> if I received them. So after not answering for 2 years, I get a
> reminder for not answering after a week.)
Didn't want to get thrown out because a mail got lost or something,
like the mail between my AM and DAM on my second try. After you
confirmed the mail I was quiet and waited for something to happen.
> When an applicant needs 2 years to answer some simple questions and is
> not particularly active otherwise [1], I certainly don't pass the
> application to the DAM; first, I have to make sure that the person is
> really active and shows a sustained contribution. So I wanted to look
> what Goswin was doing for Debian. Since he inquired about his status
> again, I talked to the DAM and formally put him on a 3 month
> observation on 2003-09-16 to see whether he's active again. Well,
Which was a 6 month wait for the DAM without any indication of
progress and no replies to inquiries about my status. Which was why I
finally cried out for help to you. I wasn't overly active on xlife (as
you show below) but active enough on irc and mailinglists and not
unresponsive to bug reports. And there isn't much going on for xlife,
its not evolving into anything new.
> that obviously ended on 2003-12-16 and Goswin has been waiting for the
> DAM roughly since then (2004-01-11 to be precise because it took me a
> while to decide whether the application was complete now). So now it's
> 2003-02-12 which means Goswin has been waiting to the DAM for about a
> month after the application was completed.
>
> [1] He not only ignored my request for more information, but also
> wasn't a good package maintainer. The changelog from his package xlife:
>
> -- Goswin von Brederlow <brederlo@informatik.uni-tuebingen.de> Wed, 6 Aug 2003 05:18:50 +0200
> -- Julien LEMOINE <speedblue@debian.org> Fri, 28 Feb 2003 18:28:23 +0100
> -- Edward Betts <edward@debian.org> Wed, 25 Apr 2001 02:24:53 -0600
> -- Edward Betts <edward@debian.org> Fri, 20 Apr 2001 20:56:08 -0600
> -- Goswin Brederlow <goswin.brederlow@student.uni-tuebingen.de> Mon, 1 Jan 2001 18:45:17 +0200
>
> (i.e. 2 maintainer uploads in 2.5 years plus 3 NMUs with the permission of the
> maintainer.)
The first two was that Edward reported a problem with Build-Depends
and I ask him to upload the fix since I need a sponsor
anyway. Basically he sponsored the upload for me. He did some cleanup
and made a mistake on the NMU (or the override file had changed since
the last upload) thus the second NMU to fix that.
The last NMU was similar. I didn't see that the updated xmkfs was
screwing up the build and taged the bug help. I didn't put the problem
high on my todo list because the existing debs worked just fine (as
fine as they did at any time anyway). Julien LEMOINE did find
the problem and send a patch and I told him he can upload it.
An NMU with Maintainers permission tells me that the maintainer is
responsive. As non DD getting the person that already looked at the
problem to upload a fix is also far easier than convincing a third to
sponsor an upload. All 3 NMUs could just as well have been made as
sponsored maintainer upload.
Looking at the timestamps involved I see that I didn't hasten and reply
the very next day but I did react in a small enough time not to feel
bad about it.
> (Speaking for myself and NM Front Desk, but not as DPL or anything else.)
> --
> Martin Michlmayr
> tbm@cyrius.com
Xlife is also dead upstream and some people have published some
updates on their own. I have kept track of several newer versions but
they tend to be unportable. For example the latest xlife update
completly fails on alpha (and probably any other 64bit system).
None of that work reflects in the changelog.
Lets also look at my other Package that is in debian for a more recent
account and a more active package: debmirror
-- Goswin von Brederlow <brederlo@informatik.uni-tuebingen.de> Wed, 11 Feb 2004 22:47:34 +0100 (4 Bugs closed, pending sponsor)
-- Goswin von Brederlow <brederlo@informatik.uni-tuebingen.de> Sun, 18 Jan 2004 11:30:34 +0100 (9 Bugs closed)
-- Goswin von Brederlow <brederlo@informatik.uni-tuebingen.de> Sun, 1 Dec 2003 1:17:05 +0100 (3 Bugs closed)
-- Goswin von Brederlow <brederlo@informatik.uni-tuebingen.de> Fri, 29 Aug 2003 13:58:34 +0200 (5 Bugs closed)
-- Goswin von Brederlow <brederlo@informatik.uni-tuebingen.de> Fri, 22 Aug 2003 21:03:34 +0200 (5 Bugs closed)
-- Goswin von Brederlow <brederlo@informatik.uni-tuebingen.de> Fri, 22 Aug 2003 13:29:34 +0200 (1 Bug closed)
-- Goswin von Brederlow <brederlo@informatik.uni-tuebingen.de> Wed, 13 Aug 2003 16:17:34 +0200 (3 Bugs closed)
And a complete rewrite to accomodate the wishlist bugs is under way in
parallel to that as well.
I've also been active on the Linuxtag booth, D-I (up until December)
and now amd64. I hope that gave you enough evidence during those 3
month that I'm actively working on Debian to support my NM app.
I can't strees enough that you have been very responsive and helpfull
in this while the DAM has not yet reacted once. Many thanks to you and
you would get my vote to be the next DPL again. As said before the
problem isn't so much being stuck but the lack of communication, the
inability to find out why.
The latet bunch of NM becoming DD had ~1-2 month between your last
action on them and the DAM creating accounts. I'm still hopefull
something will happen soon.
MfG
Goswin
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