Re: Shouldn't we have more ftp masters ?

[Sven Luther <sven.luther@wanadoo.fr>]

On Wed, May 31, 2006 at 03:10:58PM +1000, Anthony Towns wrote:
> On Tue, May 30, 2006 at 03:47:57PM +0200, Michael Banck wrote:
> > Personally, I don't think this issue is enough to revoke ftp-master's
> > right to choose their staff among themselves, but rather push more
> > people onto their team without their consent.
> 
> Maybe I've missed it, but I haven't seen any volunteers. The ideal way
> to volunteer is by doing other scut work in the meantime; Jeroen worked
> on categorising outstanding removal requests, eg, Joerg wrote the scripts
> for the new.html page iirc. If you can't think of anything useful to do,
> you might like to look at http://ftp-master.debian.org/unmet-deps/ for a
> bunch of ftp-masterish problems that no one else is looking at much these
> days.

Anthony, ...

I would like to hear your comment on the possibility to override the need for
NEW for the creation of some new binary package out of existing source
packages, where there is a clear team of people aware of the implications of
creating new binary packages. A perfect example of those is the kernel team,
and the linux-2.6 package, which has hit NEW a considerable number of times in
the past year or so, especially due to ABI changes and new upstream version
numbers.

Currently there are packages waiting in NEW and blocked by the mexico-touring
or whtaever busy-ness of the ftp-assistant handling the NEW queue, and caused
remarks by Steve Lanagasek wearing his RM hat concerning the timeliness of
fixes and upgrades for the testing migration.

Given that i am aware of no case where these packages caused any more work
than simple approval, and that i doubt that any ftp-master or ftp-assistant is
more knowledgeable and in touch of what needs happening, i don't see any
reason that could justify the current situation appart from inertia and
conventionalism, which is opposite to what you wanted to push in your DPL
plateform.

So, the current handling of NEW for those packages is a problem, and
furthermore represent uneeded work by the ftp-assistant in charge of NEW, work
he could have better spent elsewhere. This would be akin of making those teams
in charge of those well delimited packages ftp-assistants for the express
purpose of handling NEW for these packages, i think. In this case, it could
include the linux-2.6 kernel source, but also in the future, the whole host of
out-of-tree modules that are being worked on, and which also have the ABI and
version number embedded in the package name, so trigger NEW each time.

If the experience proves succesfull, it can be extended to other responsible
teams, and well, it if is abused or whatever, you can take it back anytime you
want.

Friendly,

Sven Luther