Re: Survey of new contributors -- results
On Thu, Aug 8, 2013 at 1:18 AM, Thijs Kinkhorst <thijs@debian.org> wrote:
> On Wed, August 7, 2013 21:52, Lucas Nussbaum wrote:
>> 22/37 were sponsored as part of a team
>> 10/37 had a friend or colleague sponsor them
>> 5/37 were sponsored as part of debian-mentors
>>
>> Other things mentioned (once):
>> - sponsored by the previous maintainer when adopting a package
>> - sponsored by an Ubuntu MOTU who is also a DD
>>
>> | It seems that your best luck, if your package does not fit in a team,
>> | is to find someone close to you (friend/colleague) that will make the
>> | upload... That's quite sad!
>
> I'm not following why these numbers would be "sad". People are apparently
> finding collegues or friends to sponsor them, which seems great, not sad.
> At work we sponsor non-DD's regularly and this is always a positive
> experience.
On the other hand, people who do not already have existing
relationships or contacts with DDs, and who want to get involved in
Debian, may find it much harder to do so than someone who already
knows a DD. Having a friend/colleague who is also a DD shouldn't be a
prerequisite to contributing packages to Debian (and thankfully it
isn't), yet there's no doubt that receiving personalized and prompt
feedback from someone you already know puts you in a better position
to actively contribute to Debian, compared to somebody with no
existing contacts in the FOSS community who uploads a new package to
mentors.d.n, files a RFS request, and then waits, only to see his/her
package bitrot at mentors.d.n.
> I think it's acutally encouraging to read that most people do not need
> debian-mentors but found teams, friends or collegues to work with them.
> Such longer-standing relations are, in my opinion, better than the one-off
> sponsoring that happens on d-mentors.
Aside from teams (some which are highly active, some which are
not...), debian-mentors is the go-to place for new contributors
without any existing contacts, and is also ideally the place for new
and fruitful sponsor/sponsoree relationships to develop.
Regards,
Vincent
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