Re: Suggested Means for Non-technical Users to Realize RFPs
Hello,
على السبت 30 تـمـوز 2016 03:54، كتب David Kalnischkies:
> On Sat, Jul 30, 2016 at 12:23:57AM -0700, Afif Elghraoui wrote:
>> The user can file an RFP, but nobody usually has the spare time to take
>> it up solely because of someone's request. Perhaps we as a project can
>
> True, but RFP work as a promotion, too. Its not like anyone could claim
> to know the entire internet, so "even" non-technical users can stumble
> upon a gem someone more technical inclined would be very happy to
> package (as (s)he would use it, too) if only (s)he would know it exists.
>
> Also, even if non-technical now, that might very well be a good moment
> to change that. After all, it is for your own good… also most people
> aren't born as Debian contributors, so that isn't an uncommon path.
>
I agree, but I think these two paths have some accomodation (though they
could be made easier-- especially the RFP process), so I was considering
just the case where someone has interest, but no time/ability, and no
existing contributor has the spare time or interest to accomodate an RFP.
>
>> suggest to users the crowdfunding the development of a package, where
>> interested users can pool together funds, enabling a DD or other
>> interested Debian contributor to actually make the package and integrate
>> it into Debian.
>
> The usual caveats of bugbounties apply: Who is to decide who gets the
> money & how do you prevent encouraging contributors [even more] to
> prefer packaging shiny new stuff instead of caring about already
> packaged stuff. Now it would even make economical sense to upload
> a package with the intention to let it molder until ftp-masters remove
> it as unmaintained from the archive as at that point you can collect
> funds again to run the next update round. If you don't believe that
> a bit of money could attract such kinds of behaviour, feel free to ask
> GSoC admins/mentors what they have to deal with…
>
> Even if we assume none of our current contributors can be that easily
> spoiled, for every new contributor you would need to judge the intention
> and a failure to detect the bad apples incurs a heavy fee on everyone
> who ends up needing to deal with the fallout like QA, FTP, release
> & security teams. None of them being on your initial payroll.
>
>
> It is claimed that when reporters asked astronaut Alan Shepard what he
> thought about as he sat in a rocket ready for take off, he replied "The
> fact that every part of this ship was built by the lowest bidder".
> I don't want to say that about our package repository.
>
These are all good points and I agree with all of them.
>
> If you must, fund a person/group instead. Thankfully you can do that
> quite easily already: Donate to Debian. If you will, Debian even runs
> a bounty program: Valuable contributions of all kinds can gain you perks
> like DD status, free access to otherwise expensive hardware,
> a dependable peer group for social support and even monetary
> sponsorships in various forms to attend DebConf and sprints.
>
>
This is all good, but I don't think it helps the case of someone who
wants to see a package in Debian, but can't maintain it or pay for it
alone. Of course, in the absence of continued support, there has to be
some interest on the part of the Debian contributor to donate time to
continue maintenance. I think, however, there are some cases where it is
just the original packaging is the major hurdle, where this might be a
useful path.
In the end, I think it's probably best to leave it to the Debian
contributors to campaign for realizing RFPs that they are interested in
getting support for.
Many thanks and regards
Afif
--
Afif Elghraoui | عفيف الغراوي
http://afif.ghraoui.name
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