On Wed, Oct 22, 2008 at 11:33:28PM +0200, Joerg Jaspert wrote:
> Developer Status
> ================
Hi all, thanks for this proposal.
It is about something that we have discussed several times in the
past, and was already agreed as a point of Debian needing improvement:
how to upon contribution to non-hackers, and how to recognize those
contributions.
I support the proposal, but I join the choir of who is asking a GR
vote upon it. The reason is not that I think there is controversy on
this, on the contrary I think we will be able to find wide-consensus
(if we manage to keep out of the vote micro-management ...). However,
voting on it will be a very nice message to our users and wannabe
contributors. If you want, I believe it would be the best possible
"marketing" of this wonderful proposal.
The style can be the same as the DM vote IMO: "The Debian project
endorses the concepts of ...". I haven't yet read the whole thread,
hence I don't know if somebody has volunteered yet, but I'd be happy
to join who is willing to draft the resolution.
Some more specific comments follow.
> Some time ago a few Developers thus went and pushed forward the
> "Debian Maintainer" status. DM allows newcomers to upload their
Just as a reminder / TODO item: it should be checked whether the
infrastructure you are proposing do not clash with the DM GR we voted
upon. Not that I see any conceptual incompatibilities, but we should
be sure there aren't any "formal" incompatibilities.
> Debian Contributor
> ------------------
> A DC is someone that has a strong relation with Debian through the
> work they are doing for/around Debian. Possible examples are
> translators and documentation writers.
In case of future reuse of this paragraph (e.g., for the GR text), we
should mention also here graphic artists, as they are a good share of
our target for DCs.
> Debian Maintainer
> -----------------
<snip>
> They are allowed to upload their own (source) package. The allowed
> list of (source) packages to upload can be edited by any member of
> the NM committee[NMC], who will do a package check before they add
> new packages to the DM's list. In contrast to current DM this is
> based on source packages and allows uploads of new binary
> components, which have to pass NEW, too.
This is the main point which bothers me. Practically: you are shifting
the burden of "approving" new DMs from DDs as it is know to NMC. I can
imagine a few reasons for that, for example if we feel the current
"control" on DMs is too light.
Still DMs are commonly "used" (wow, never used that many double quotes
in 2 paragraphs ...) as part of special purpose maintenance team, my
example is as usual the pkg-ocaml-maint team. In these cases, members
of the team are better suited to review the packages than the NMC, at
least a priori.
Do you see any way to consolidate the two needs?
Maybe we can leave the package review to the teams they plan to work
with, and require a "stamp" form NMC, but without explicitly stating
that they will do package reviewing? I'm not sure about the right
solution, but I see a minor problem here ...
> Those two "classes" are the initial set in which every NM will end
> up. After six months as DC or DM one might chose to become a
> Debian Member or Debian Developer. This
FWIW, 6 months seems a reasonable time frame to me.
> Debian Member
> -------------
<snip>
> Following our Constitution §8.1.2, DAM declares that Debian Members are
> to be treated as "Developers who do not maintain packages" wherever the
> term "Developer" is used in one of our documents.
According to Manoj's post you have already reviewed the foundational
document for consistency about this proposal. Still, there are some
interesting cases which should be investigated. For example, is a DM
allowed to enter the CTTE?
This is just an example, more generally I believe there is some kind
of review to be made about this kind of corner cases.
Note: I'm not saying that this micro-details should be part of a vote,
$GOD forbids! But we need to think about these gory details.
> contributor.debian.org mail
> ---------------------------
> We are considering to implement an @contributor.debian.org mail
Which of course should be considered living in the same email
namespace of @debian.org. I don't want that someone gets
zack@contributor.debian.org for example.
Cheers.
--
Stefano Zacchiroli -*- PhD in Computer Science \ PostDoc @ Univ. Paris 7
zack@{upsilon.cc,pps.jussieu.fr,debian.org} -<>- http://upsilon.cc/zack/
Dietro un grande uomo c'è sempre /oo\ All one has to do is hit the right
uno zaino -- A.Bergonzoni \__/ keys at the right time -- J.S.Bach
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