Re: Comments on proposing NEW queue improvement (Re: Current NEW review process saps developer motivation

[Russ Allbery <rra@debian.org>]

Scott Kitterman <debian@kitterman.com> writes:
> Sean Whitton <spwhitton@spwhitton.name> wrote:

>> I think we still want the binary package namespace checking?

>> I.e., a GR just saying "ftpteam should not do a full
>> licensing/copyright check for packages in binNEW".

>> Then no software changes are required.

> I think that a GR to prohibit developers from looking for bugs is at
> least in principle inconsistent with not hiding problems.

Saying that a project delegate, acting as a delegate, should not block
binNEW uploads for a specific sort of check that's currently mandatory is
not at *all* the same thing as prohibiting developers from looking for
bugs.  It doesn't do that at all.  Anyone who does ftpmaster work would
still be able to (and encouraged to!) look for and file bugs just like any
other developer.  If those bugs are RC, they would be treated like any
other RC bug.

But the project is entitled to override the decisions of a project
delegate by GR if it so chooses (constitution 4.1.3), and one of the
reasons why the project may decide to do so is if we collectively believe
the project delegates have misjudged the trade-offs of making a particular
process mandatory on the grounds that it catches some number of RC bugs.
The project may, for example, decide that yes, this process catches some
RC bugs, but the number of bugs caught are not worth the other impacts of
that process, and the RC bugs can be dealt with via other means.

-- 
Russ Allbery (rra@debian.org)              <https://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>