Re: Third call for votes for the debian project leader election 2006

[Antti-Juhani Kaijanaho <ajk@debian.org>]

Adding debian-newmaint@lists. Please trim the recipient list as appropriate.

I wrote:
> > My guess is that not enough non-maintainers apply for developership 
> > (possibly due to a widespread mistaken belief that the NM process is 
> > just for maintainers).

JC Helary wrote:
> It is not a mistaken belief, it directly comes from:
> http://www.debian.org/devel/join/newmaint

It is a mistaken belief. That page is just poorly worded in this regard, 
if it makes you believe otherwise.

(Quote from the abovementioned page:)
> > Some ways of contributing (translating, writing documentation and 
> > reporting bugs) can be done by everyone and don't require developer 
> > status.

What that's trying to say is, applying for developership should not be 
the first thing to do in Debian; there are a lot of things you can do 
before you apply.  Nowadays, showing prior work is required for an 
applicant to get anywhere in the NM process.

> If maintaining _requires_ developer status

It doesn't, it just makes it easier.