Re: negative vote for maintainer Michael Gilbert
On Wed, Jan 04, 2012 at 01:54:48PM +0000, Emil wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I would like to know how can you give a negative vote for a maintainer
> who neglects serious bugs in the packages he's supposed to look after.
>
> Michael Gilbert <michael.s.gilbert@gmail.com> ignores a serious bug
> #641873 in package xpdf for the last 3 months. xpdf is the only
> linux lean and fast alternative PDF viewer and it is broken in Debian.
> The bug is only present with the debian patches so he's the only person
> who can fix this.
>
> The same xpdf package also has bug #640515 also 3 months old - xpdf
> segfaults when printing.
>
> I wonder why is the xpdf package included in this shape in Debian at all
> if you can't view text and can't print.
>
> Other exaples of unsolved bugs: #622877 from 15 April 2011 (xpdf can't
> print landscape documents); this one is from the time you could still
> print in xpdf.
>
> So I would like to know what is the process to vote out a maintainer
> if he doesn't step aside and lets someone who is interested in
> maintaining his own packages.
Debian is made for volunteers and sometimes people do not have time for
their packages or for answering all the bugs in the Bug Tracking System.
This does not make people automatically bad maintainers.
If you think a package is not being taken care of, please write an email
to the MIA team who will mail the maintainer and, if the maintainer
does not answer, will eventually orphan the packages so other
people can adopt them. You can reach the MIA team at mia@qa.debian.org
Also, Release Critical bugs can be fixed by another developer, although
sometimes very specific bugs need some deep knowledge and other developers
prefer not to touch it.
Ana
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