Re: Bits from the Release Team (Jessie freeze info)

[Ian Jackson <ijackson@chiark.greenend.org.uk>]

Niels Thykier writes ("Bits from the Release Team (Jessie freeze info)"):
> Results of porter roll-call
> ===========================
...
> Summary table:
> Arch           || DDs || NMs/DMs || Other || Total
> - ---------------++-----++---------++-------++------
> armel          ||  5  ||       0 ||     2 ||    7
> armhf          ||  6  ||       1 ||     2 ||    9
> hurd-i386      ||  5  ||       0 ||     3 ||    8
> ia64           || *0* ||       0 ||     3 ||    3
> kfreebsd-amd64 ||  5  ||       0 ||     2 ||    6
> kfreebsd-i386  ||  5  ||       0 ||     2 ||    6
> mips           ||  2  ||       0 ||     1 ||    3
> mipsel         ||  2  ||       0 ||     1 ||    3
> powerpc[1]     || (1) ||       0 ||     2 ||   2.5?
> s390x          ||  1  ||       0 ||     1 ||    2
> sparc          ||  1  ||       0 ||     0 ||    1
...
> Based on the number of porters, we are considering changing the
> current requirements of "5 DDs" to better reflect the reality of the
> situation.  We will follow up in a future bits on the changes.

Thanks.

I think it is disappointing to find that we may be dropping
architectures where a significant amount of effort is available,
simply because the volunteers don't have enough status - specifically,
because of a lack of DDs.

I'm keen that Debian should continue to support a wide range of
architectures.  Would it help if I, as a DD, volunteered to sponsor
porter uploads for any architecture ?  That is I guess I'm
volunteering to become a new kind of person - a "non-port-specific
porter sponsor".

Obviously I will review the debdiff etc.  I'm an experienced C
programmer with some background in C language lawyering and
portability stuff, so I should usually be able to do a decent review
of a patch even on an unfamiliar architecture.

In fact, regardless of what the release team decide for the policy, I
would be happy to sponsor porter uploads.  Please just email me.

Ian.