Re: Proposal for collaborative maintenance of packages
On Thu, 2005-12-29 at 03:35 -0800, Steve Langasek wrote:
> While insiders are not qualified to comment on how outsiders *feel* about
> the process, they are certainly the people to judge whether the *outcome* of
> the process is the correct one.
Outcome for their own personal pleasure? No: they're not
qualified to judge the outcome either: that's a judgement made
in the market by end users. Based on that Debian is reasonably
successful .. but way WAY behind Microsoft. Do we really
want that??
> Sorry, if you want Debian to make
> particular changes to make it easier to contribute,
Not really: I would like people who know more than me
about the processes to choose the changes so that the
outcome I desire is obtained -- an easier way for
people less committed to Debian than a DD to contribute.
Ubuntu agreed with me, and made it so. It is still
quite hard though. (It's easier to become a MOTU than
a DD .. but it still requires way too much commitment
to the project for someone whose primary commitment
is to *developing* software rather than packaging it).
> you're much better off
> arguing it in terms of the *benefits to the project*
To whom? A project isn't a human thing, it cannot
gain benefits. I am interested in Debian only in that
it benefits the whole human race.
It does that -- IMHO -- by making it easier to install
and run an Open operating systems and tools.. something
I'm all in favour of. But the process itself is still
too much of a burden to participate in for those less
committed to Debian -- in particular upstream developers.
It's probably even worse for end users ;(
I can suggest whole heap of things that would improve
the situation .. but I can't choose which ones to
implement. All I can do is ask .. please do SOMETHING
to streamline the process a bit more and to make it
a bit easier for more people to get involved.
--
John Skaller <skaller at users dot sf dot net>
Felix, successor to C++: http://felix.sf.net
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