Re: No response from official maintainer
Hello Andriy,
thanks for your interest in Debian (and in buildbot specifically).
On Wed, Sep 1, 2010 at 12:33, Andriy Senkovych
<jolly_roger@itblog.org.ua> wrote:
> Dear mentors!
>
> Recently I started a conversation about uploading new release of
> buildbot package with a lot of changes in the Debian part of the
> package too (http://lists.debian.org/debian-mentors/2010/08/msg00258.html).
> Since the package has an official maintainer who uploads his work on
> other packages periodically I was considered as the one who hijacked
> the package (http://lists.debian.org/debian-mentors/2010/08/msg00268.html).
> I've sent private message to the official maintainer as well since
> that time but still with no response.
Sadly, this absence of reply is not something surprising me (and
others I think, as also Paul discovered[0]). This lack of
communication, interest and the overcommitting of Matthias is what has
made us call to the Technical Committee about Python maintainership.
Given this is a perfect example of what we wanted to show, I add the
TC bug in CC, to also show that situation is still going on.
[0] http://lists.debian.org/debian-mentors/2010/09/msg00018.html
> I'd like to know what steps should be done so I could work on this
> package in future without being misunderstood.
For such situations, it's always better to publicly send your "pings"
(the email you sent privately to Matthias about the status of the
package) using the Debian BTS for example, like you did (but only
partially) in [1]. Also, directly add in CC Matthias, even for bugs on
his packages, so there won't be any comments like "ah, but he was not
directly in the loop" (yes, this happens...), so I'm doing it now,
even if Romain already did[2], without any public reply from Matthias.
[1] http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=587313
[2] http://lists.debian.org/debian-mentors/2010/08/msg00268.html
> That conversation also showed me some things on Debian release
> management I didn't know about
> (http://lists.debian.org/debian-mentors/2010/08/msg00264.html). I
> understood that the package cannot be uploaded to unstable since it
> could pass to testing just with the flow of time without any humanity
> checks. But I know nothing concerning upload to experimental branch
> and its policy. Can you advice any documents or other information
> sources on these policies concerning approving huge changes in the
> package structure?
I am too lazy to check :) but you probably can find something about
the "freeze" process in the Debian policy and/or Developers Reference.
Just to do a very brief recap, during a freeze any upload to unstable
won't transition to testing (that will be the new stable) unless
accepted by a Release Team member. Experimental is "free to use" for
cases like yours, so the buildbot upload has to be targetting
experimental, and be tested there until we release and then be
uploaded to unstable.
> Another question I am worried about is a quality of my solution made
> in the package. I believe it is not bad but I feel there's could be
> better ways to do that. Can you please advice where I can discuss my
> solution and the way to improve them?
Given it's a python application, you'd be much welcomed to join[3] the
PAPT[4] and maintain the package there. In any case, you can discuss
python "stuff" packaging on debian-python@lists.debian.org and for
fast replies on IRC on #debian-python channel on irc.debian.org
server.
[3] http://wiki.debian.org/Teams/PythonModulesTeam/HowToJoin
[4] http://wiki.debian.org/Teams/PythonAppsPackagingTeam
> Currently I participate in the buildbot project and I hope I can
> improve the software as well as it's representation in Debian.
Given Romain's reply is 10 days old, given Paul already pinged doko on
IRC, given you contacted several times Matthias (and since several
months) and none of these generated any reply, I think you can go on
and take over the package.
Regards,
--
Sandro Tosi (aka morph, morpheus, matrixhasu)
My website: http://matrixhasu.altervista.org/
Me at Debian: http://wiki.debian.org/SandroTosi
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