Re: Should I sign up for New Maintainer even though I don't have an advodcate?
On Fri, 4 Apr 2003, B. Douglas Hilton wrote:
> I really could give a ratt's a$$ about a Debian email address, that is
> the least of my concerns. Just what I don't need is another email address.
Well, that's a start. I was hard on the issue of the e-mail address because
it's an easy analogy...
> I dunno. I remember submitting a bug report for Debian/Arm last year
> because something trivial ( can't remember now ) was messed up. I don't
> generally submit bug reports, because I generally don't have any problems
> with Debian that I cannot fix with the vi editor and abour 30 seconds of
> effort.
Was it problem in the package that you fixed? Then tell the maintainer
about it in a bug report. If it was a local config issue, could it have
been avoided with a better initial package config?
I'm sure you get what I'm driving at.
> bdhilton@charter.net is my current email
> ... before that it was doug.hilton@engineer.com
> ... before that it was doug.hilton@cyberdude.com
> ... before that it was dman3@geocities.com
> ... before that it was some doug.hilton@z???.p???.f???.fidonet.org
Heh. Fido<->Internet gateways. I think it was actually
h??.n??.z??.fidonet.org. But we digress...
> I really haven't had any problems with Debian, certainly nothing which
> requires a bug report. Remember I've been using it for a decade. Its
> probably bad, but I just fix things without really thinking about it,
> I'm used to Debian.
That's a perfect user's perspective - just fix it and get on with things.
But the maintainer has to think beyond his own needs (something I still hit
occasionally) - what's best for my *users*. Demonstrating that you're
thinking like that (by reporting every problem with a package, even if it
took 30 seconds to fix, because most users aren't as clued as you, so will
either take ages to fix or just say "Debian sucks") is important (well,
might be, depending on your advocate).
> I could use to install Sid, just empty hard drive space. As far as inactive,
> yes, I hacked and hacked and hacked on OSKit/Mach for Debian/Hurd with no
> official status and just kept getting ripped on by Roland and Marcus and
> Thomas. Don't get me wrong, they are great programmers, but I really got
> discouraged after a while. Search the debian/hurd mailing lists and you
> will see that I posted a lot of data. I felt like I was spending a lot of
> time, money, and effort, and I got discouraged. I have a day job and a
> family, and I just want a little Debian feather in my cap to justify all
> the time I spend on it.
OK, so you're active in Debian/HURD development, mainly. Is there any DD
over there who thinks you're good? That sounds like a good place to start
advocate hunting. If you've burned all your bridges there, then you've
failed in another area of your skills and procedures - getting along with
other DDs. There's over 900 of us (or thereabouts) and if you're running
around pissing everybody off, that's not good. I'll note here a current
debian-private flamewar which has demonstrated why the project needs no more
DDs who can't get along with other people...
> I am the maintainer of that package. No, I have not searched for
> complimentary packages and their respective maintainers. AFAIK Debian has
> no drum machine packages.
I was thinking sound synth packages in general, actually.
> I agree. Thus the real answer to my query. This makes it very hard
> to apply because you need an advocate before you even apply, so nobody
> even knows you are alive. It would be nice if there was a pre-applicant
> status where you could laud your great Debian contributions until they
> built up enough for somebody to notice. Most of my work was in the
Well, I think the idea of the advocate stage is that you'll be working in an
area naturally, and will come to the attention of DDs who also work in that
part, so you'll follow the process you've described - build up your
achievements until someone notices.
> debian-hurd@lists.debian.org and it seems to have fallen through the
> cracks and been forgotten. Debian/X86 is so stable and such high
> quality that there is little development work or bug reporting required.
You'd think that, wouldn't you? There is no shortage of bugs in x86/debian
in general, though. Whether they interest you or not is another matter, of
course. It seems like you're into the more hard-core engineering stuff.
> Remember how I said above "I just fix the bugs" ... well I do. If
> Debian fails, I just install Slack on top of it and drive on. Maybe
> this is wrong, but I'm just a user, not a Developer.
<philosopher type="confucious">
To become a developer, you must first be a developer.
</philosopher>
Or is that more of a koan? I can never remember the distinction.
> Thats another issue. I don't want to be a Debian Maintainer, I want to
> be a Debian Developer. A subtle difference, yet nonetheless important.
Debian needs people who are focussed on more than packaging. Especially for
things like the Hurd. You may have muddied the waters a little by pushing
your package to be sponsored. You don't have to have a package in Debian to
be a DD - they don't kick you out or anything (I didn't have my name in the
Packages file for 6 months after joining).
> Debian is my passion and I love the OS and I want to work at it, but you
> can only work for free for so long before you develop an attitude, and
> every time I get an attitude I go inactive -- human nature I suppose.
I feel your frustration. If your work on Hurd has been truly ignored by the
Hurd Cabal, then I can understand that you would want to get in and kick
some butt. Without having any real knowledge of the situation, though, I
can only guess that either (a) your work isn't as underappreciated as you
think, or (b) you've really pissed off some Hurd people, or (c) you just
haven't promoted yourself into being noticed.
> No I still don't have an advocate. When I went to DebConf2 it seemed like
> a college network thing... one would be a DD and advocate his friends, I
> was an outsider and thus did not have the long term friendship and trust
> required. There were a lot of cool people there, but the time was much
> to short to develop any real friendships.
My advocate was a guy at a LUG meeting I'd met maybe once or twice before.
I more knew "of" him than anything, really. I asked, he said yes, he spent
some time checking me out (behind my back, I didn't know what he was doing)
and then said "in you go". Advocacy isn't supposed to be all the checking a
person needs, it's just a statement by a DD that "this guy isn't a complete
tosser".
To answer your point, yes, obviously, you are going to be far more likely to
get an advocate from those people you know - and that is the system working
as desired, I think.
But it doesn't have to be RL friendships - it doesn't (in my experience)
take too long to become part of a group if you're involved in it. If you
make it known you want an advocate, and you're doing good work with DDs,
then I'm sure one of them would be happy to advocate for you.
I just had another thought - it is possible that, if they've been DDs for a
long time, that they don't really understand the advocate system, what it is
and why it's so vitally important to an NM. Perhaps some education might be
required.
> Well, I'm trying. I a package, I have the skills, I have the
> correct motivations. Don't blame me for a couple cries for help because
> I'm trying to get noticed here amidst this cacophany of discordance.
I don't think this is the place to pick up an advocate. That should come
from your work with the project as it is. -mentors (IMO) is for those who
need help with the mechanics of the project - packaging, how to get an
advocate, etc. Actually catching an advocate should probably require going
to somewhere you're well known and saying "tell them ---> I'm a decent
bloke". Sponsorship requests end up on -mentors because there isn't really
anywhere else decent for it - until the Sponsorship system gets going,
anyway.
- Matt
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