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Re: [debian-newmaint] fresh blood gets congested: long way to become DD



On Thu, Nov 10, 2005 at 04:36:47AM -0300, Blu Corater wrote:
> I have considered many times to apply to become part of the proyect, but
> nowdays I more often regret not having done it back then, mainly because
> with the current states of things I find quite ridiculous to be evaluated
> for more than three years to be accepted.

I find this to be a ridiculous exaggeration.  The average time from AM
assignment to account creation is much *less* than three years among those
applicants who have become Debian Developers over the past six months; and
the time spent on NM varies with the preparedness of the candidate.  It also
varies according to when the applicant entered the queue, as applicants are
completing the process faster now than they were last year before the DAM
backlog was cleared.  The average, though, seems to be something less than 1
year.

The current bottleneck in the NM process is that the rate at which new
applicants apply exceeds the rate at which our existing application managers
can accept applicants.  Unless you're arguing that Debian should not attempt
to assess incoming applicants *at all*, I don't see how you can claim that
this is caused by people trying to make Debian too elitist.

We need more application managers in order to eliminate this bottleneck
(which, btw, is probably only noticeable as a bottleneck now because of
other improvements on the DAM side...).  Criticizing people on this list
isn't going to help that problem; the developers who subscribe to -newmaint
are already doing what they can to get applicants integrated into the
project.  (In my case, that's damn little -- I'm afraid other work in the
project has taken me away from being a real AM, but my hat is off to those
who do make time to be AMs.)

In Richard's mail, he wrote that the fact that people complain about the NM
queue periodically is proof that there is a critical problem that needs
resolving.  This is a valid interpretation of the facts, but I don't believe
it's a correct one.  An equally valid interpretation is: once people start
complaining, they don't know what to stop.  Because of past problems with
the queue, we find ourself entertaining complaints that it takes three years
to become a DD when that simply isn't true.

> and, not that I want to, but it would be easier for me to enter the secret
> service of my country than to enter Debian.

I'm trying really hard to understand that as a criticism, and it's just not
working...  I just can't bring myself to think that military and
intelligence organizations have appropriate standards that can be fairly
compared to Debian. :)

-- 
Steve Langasek                   Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS
Debian Developer                   to set it on, and I can move the world.
vorlon@debian.org                                   http://www.debian.org/

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