Re: Proposal: have NM and DM sign a package maintainer pledge
On Sun, Sep 20, 2009 at 12:41:25PM +0200, Raphael Hertzog wrote:
> As a package maintainer, I will do my best to help the Debian project
> release a stable version of our operating system. In particular, I will
> work together with the release team and I will keep all packages
> associated to my name free of release critical bugs. To this effect, if
> I'm not registered as being busy or in vacation, I will start working on
> my release critical bugs as soon as possible (in less than 1 week in
> common cases). If I can't deal with them in a timely fashion, I will state
> it clearly in the associated bug reports, tag them help and invite other
> contributors either to provide a patch or to do a non-maintainer upload.
>
> If I do not manage to handle release critical bugs in the above described
> way, or if I almost never deal with any of my RC bugs by myself, I will:
> ??? not refuse help and even propose co-maintainance to good contributors
> ??? recognize my failure and actively try to find a new maintainer and/or
> co-maintainers
> ??? not complain if the quality assurance team decides to orphan the package
>
> I recognize that my work is not limited to unstable. I will also work with
> the stable release team and the security team to provide updated packages
> for the stable and/or testing distribution when some issues deserve it.
>
> I am aware of the limits of my skills and my available time and I will
> avoid packaging software that I would not be able to maintain properly.
To be honest, I think it goes into way too much detail about how RC bugs
should get handled. Of course, RC bugs are important, but if we
introduce something like this, it seems a bit blown out of proportion.
What about trying to work gracefully with other members of the Debian
community, as well as upstream and downstream developers? What about
treating our users respectfully? What about striving to be excellent in
your packaging?
This looks like a missed opportunity to me.
If we are just worried about RC bugs (or RC bugs as result of overworked
developers), I think we can handle this just fine right now (NMUs
followed by forced orphaning from QA in coordination with the DAM).
Michael
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