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Re: New-Maintainer



On Mon, Jan 03, 2000 at 02:30:09AM -0600, Chris Lawrence wrote:

> I don't think the DPL himself chose to halt taking new maintainers.
> My interpretation of what Joey and James have said is that they both
> had concerns about NM that weren't being addressed, and they stopped
> taking applications because of that.

Fair enough, they're within their Constitutional rights to do that also.

3. A person may leave the Project or resign from a particular post they
hold, at any time, by stating so publicly.

I don't think the "publicly" part was done very well, but that's
something to learn from and move on.

> Sponsorship is sort of an *ad hoc* system to try to harness the
> interest in maintaining packages.  It is not intended as a long-term
> replacement for being a maintainer, but it could form the basis of
> some sort of apprenticeship once we begin taking applications again.
> I believe Wichert's proposal includes an "internship" period that
> would be similar (see below).

I was aware of this, the e-mail was just getting huge.  (See below...)

> The bug reports will go to the actual maintainer, not the sponsor, if
> the control file is set up properly.  The sponsored party is listed as
> the "Maintainer" for dpkg purposes; they just can't upload the package
> themselves.

I didn't realize this.  It's interesting that this is how it's being
handled.  I haven't looked carefully at the Maintainer listings in the
packages, and was careful to mention that I could be wrong.  Obviously,
I was.

> Well, since what we have now is an "ad hoc" procedure, I don't think
> it belongs in the reference.  Perhaps someone could write up a
> document about "How do I contribute to Debian without becoming a
> maintainer", maybe?

Still thinking about this one, as it's somewhat covered on the web page,
but I'd be happy to help out and write something if anyone thinks it
would be helpful.  (Put the long-winded guy to work!)  

Feedback anyone?  If the feedback is positive, I'll gladly move the
questions regarding what format and how to get it where it needs to be
to -doc or -mentors.

> I think the reason is that there are very few people who are trusted
> with this job; it is after all very sensitive: not just security-wise,
> but also politically.  Another reason may be that it puts the new
> maintainer people in an awkward position; they've certainly gotten a
> lot of flamage (including some from me) that has been over-the-top,
> and I can't see anyone wanting to put themselves in that position...

Yeah, one of my points was that flaming ANYONE isn't constructive at
this point, and we all (maintainers and those who wish to be) have to
show more maturity than to flame.  Everyone needs to vent sometimes, but
it usually accomplishes little.

> Anyway, this is perhaps all moot since the "word" is that we're close
> to reopening the new maintainer queue, though I haven't heard anything
> about whether or not Joey and/or James will be participating, and/or
> who else will be involved.  The plan is to follow the procedure
> outlined in this mail message:
> 
> http://www.debian.org/Lists-Archives/debian-project-9910/msg00003.html

Thanks for the reference.  I'd lost the original locally here,
unfortunately.

> It may be amended somewhat by now; talk to Wichert if you have any
> particular suggestions.

If it's been amended, it would be nice if someone could point those of
us who are waiting to the changes.  We also need to make sure that major
changes find their way into the traditional Debian project documentation.
I'm certainly willing to help with this also.

At least one person has already pointed out that my original
message should have gone to -project and not to -devel.  Apologies all
around, but many of the questions were directed specifically to
developers, and this forum was better to reach as many developers as
possible.  

I also wanted to make the point that as developers in a distributed
project, we ALL are responsible for the project itself as much as we are
responsible to keep the quality of our packages high.

I wanted to point out also that the Constitution makes it clear that the
project leader is more of an arbitrator and/or facilitator than "benevolent
dictator, which I've heard folks describe Weichert's role to be.

If someone wants us to CC: -project and move the thread there, feel free.
In fact, I'll copy this reply to there also and we can continue there.

-- 
Nate Duehr <nate@natetech.com>

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