I'm subscribed to the list, no need to CC me :) Jay Berkenbilt wrote:
On Thu, Dec 30, 2004 at 01:46:38AM +0000, Helen Faulkner wrote:> Given this, I think a better model for spacing the questions would be to > send a NM applicant a few questions every couple of weeks, and to pay > attention to whether they were able to fit in this workload with the rest > of their life, whether they were able to sustain that level of workload for > several months, and whether they were able to respond fairly quickly, in > general, to a new piece of work appearing for them to do. I think that is > probably closer to what Debian actually needs from it's maintainers.I think I spent about 16 hours total on all the questions. I did them in small chunks over one week. I liked having all the questions at once because I could look ahead and adjust my answers. If I had only seen the questions in small chunks, I definitely would have ended up answering later questions as part of my answers to earlier questions. (I did some of this anyway.)
I think that I have probably not explained my point very clearly. For the record, I feel under no particular external pressure to complete my T&S in a particular timeframe. Certainly my AM is not pressuring me to do so. We have infact agreed on a model for my answering his questions which does split them up somewhat, and I'm perfectly happy with that. So I have no problems with what I am doing.
My point is that it is not useful for Debian to know that I can spend 40 hours in a week answering my T&S questions, or for Debian to know that you can spend 16 hours in a week doing the same. That is not the kind of commitment that Debian in general seeks.
If I were to conduct my package maintainence in the same way that I am doing my T&S, I would be ignoring all bugs submitted to my packages for months, and then trying to solve them all in one great rush. No doubt some people manage their packages this way, but it doesn't seem ideal to me. Much better if I am able to fit in smaller chunks of work as the bugs arise, to solve each bug quickly once it is reported.
I believe it is much more useful to know that someone can commit an hour or two at a time, to solve a particular problem soon after it comes up. Based on my NM progress so far, Debian has no way of knowing whether I am able to make that kind of commitment or not. If I am not able to do that, I may turn out to be a maintainer who leaves RC bugs unattended for months at a time, because that's the only way I am able to organise my Debian commitments around the rest of my life. I doubt that we need more of that.
I did not make the suggestion because I think it would be better for the applicants, though I think it would have some advantages for at least some of them, but because I think it would be better for Debian.
I'm obviously generalising here, not trying to say anything specific about any particular individuals other than myself. Also, I am infact the kind of person who can make the kind of commitment that I think Debian needs, though I know that most of you have no way of knowing that. But that is beside the point :)
Helen