Re: Summary of the debian-devel BoF at Debconf9
On Tue, Aug 18, 2009 at 5:41 AM, Michael Banck<mbanck@debian.org> wrote:
> at Debconf9, there was a BoF about the debian-devel list and how we
> could possibly make it more attractive.
...
> * Maybe split off WNPP Traffic to a new -wnpp list?
...
> The other discussed item was about ITPs. It turned out that roughly 20%
> of the debian-devel list traffic are ITPs and discussions thereof.
> While it is clear that ITPs should get reviewed, maybe not all of them
> have to be copied to -devel. It was suggested that for mass-filings
> (sometimes people file the ITP for a dozen perl libraries needed as
> Build-Depends/Depends for a package in one go), something less-intrusive
> could be used, maybe perhaps a summary posting. Another option is that
> specific teams like the perl or the games teams review ITPs in their
> field, while only generic ITPs get copied to -devel.
Lets start with some low hanging fruit: ITP floods
It appears that many folks may not read the developers-reference
because it already says the following:
If you are packaging so many new packages (>10) that notifying the
mailing list in seperate messages is too disruptive, do send a summary
after filing the bugs to the debian-devel list instead.
http://www.debian.org/doc/developers-reference/pkgs.html#newpackage
I personally didn't know about this sentence, I'd suggest significant
changes to the developers reference be announced in DeveloperNews or
similar in future to make recommended practice better known.
I would suggest the following sentences instead:
If you are packaging multiple related packages, notifying the mailing
list in seperate messages is too disruptive, file the ITP bugs and
then send a summary to the debian-devel list instead. Likewise, if you
are packaging many new packages (>10), send a summary of the ITP bugs
instead.
Perhaps the number should be changed to 5 instead of 10.
Also, how about the following addition to the next edition of DeveloperNews?
=== debian-devel and ITPs ===
At DebConf9 there was a discussion about making the debian-devel list
more useful. Towards that end, here is a quick reminder of the
recommendations in the developers reference 5.1[devref51]. Please do
not sent ITPs for multiple packages to debian-devel, instead, please
file the ITPs and send a summary to debian-devel afterwards. This is
especially true for multiple packages that are related in some way.
[devref51] http://www.debian.org/doc/developers-reference/pkgs.html#newpackage
-- Paul Wise
--
bye,
pabs
http://wiki.debian.org/PaulWise
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