Re: Developers vs Uploaders
On Sun, 18 Mar 2007, Erinn Clark wrote:
> * Anthony Towns <aj@azure.humbug.org.au> [2007:03:15 04:22 +1000]:
> > If people don't do a good job as a "maintainer" they should have their
> > priveleges removed fairly promptly; and if a developers recommends
> > people to be listed as maintainers who turn out to be a problem, or if a
> > developer just doesn't stay around to help them out when the need arises,
> > they should stop being allowed to recommend people.
>
> Who gets to decide this and what kind of process would be implemented?
> What exactly would be a good job?
The jetring stuff is certainly public, so everyone can inspect who added
who. For the start of the experiment, I think it makes sense that the
ftpmasters (who implemented that feature) add the jetring entries created
by sponsors. On the long term Anthony mentionned giving the handling of
that keyring to a larger keyring-maint group.
As far as what is a good job, we already have some metrics: policy
violation, RC bugs, ability to create packages suitable for a stable
release.
You'll never have a 100% clear limit, exactly in the same manner that
there's no 100% clear limit with the NM process.
> - It's not obvious what problems it's meant to be solving
>
> Is it meant to be a stepping stone for NM? Prevent sponsor(ee) burnout
> and boredom? Is it meant to replace NM eventually? If so, what are the
> current NM problems _besides_ sponsoring and boredom that it's
> solving? And what's causing all the waiting -- is it reasonable or
> not? Are the NMs at fault? etc.
The problem is to allow more small-scale contributors. We have volunteers
who would like to maintain only few specific packages and who don't want
to go the burden to go through NM to be able to do that job. The skills
required to maintain one or two small packages are different from the
skills that the NM process requires.
The checks for the NM process are more strict and rightly so, because the
rights of a DD are important.
Additionnaly, once this possibility exists, it just make sense to use it
for NM who have already proved their skills. I fail to see why it would
augment the length of their NM process. On the contrary, the time won for
his sponsors can be reused to train other people and/or process more
people in the NM queue.
> Because here's what I think about those: NM could be revamped
The NM team awaits your contributions. :-)
> - Overly bureaucratic
I would prefer drafting a jetring entry for a good sponsoree of mine
instead of continuing the sponsorship... sponsorship is also bureaucracy
past a certain point.
> - More power structures
I see that as good thing when we have more people able to empower other
people to do Debian work.
> - Stratification
>
> As a subset of the power structure thing, one of the other issues I
> foresee is a "some developers are more equal than others" thing
> happening. I'm having a hard time thinking of how to explain this,
> because it's a bit "télétubby", as Joss would say, but I think there
> is ample world history that supports the idea that caste systems
> negatively impact societies, unless you're in the upper caste. And
> this bullet would not be complete with a gratuitous mention of
> Gattaca and A Brave New World. :)
Each person is able to choose what he wants to become. If he chooses DM
instead of DD, I fail to see why we should refuse that. There's no "cast"
and there's no classification to do. One chooses how far he wants to get
involved and what is the right status for himself.
> - Trust and upload rights
>
> I don't think upload rights should be given out trivially, but I also
> think that if you've got upload rights, you might as well have full
> rights and that you ought to have been through all of the "inspection"
> a current NM/DD would have to go through. The idea I'm getting from
> this is that you don't even have to agree with Debian philosophy or
> have much verification for who you are in order to have upload rights.
That's simply wrong. Of course, we'll require them to agree to the SC and
DFSG. And of course, that there will be checks, that's why we have
sponsors for DM _before_ they get added.
But you know agreeing to the SC and DFSG (and checking the GPG key) is the
shortest part of the NM procedure.
> Because if you don't, then upload rights probably shouldn't be given
> to you, and if you've already proven that stuff, then, again, you may
> as well be a full-fledged developer. And what happens when the DMs
> realize they can't vote (but want to) and that they now have to
> complete NM anyway?
What's the problem? They can register to NM at any time like any
volunteer. And it's not like they didn't know the difference when they
started to contribute...
Cheers,
--
Raphaël Hertzog
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