Re: Hijacking^W^W^W^W^W^WSalvaging packages for fun and profit: A proposal
Hi Arno,
Thanks for this initiative. It seems like a useful guideline.
> * A previous NMU was not acknowledged, and at least another issue
> justifying another NMU is pending for /one month/ [5].
I was wondering what 'acknowledging an NMU' means nowadays. Of course, we
all used this term from the time that NMU's did not close bugs in the BTS
and therefore needed to be explicitly acknowledged by an MU. However,
since we have version tracking there's no need and I guess also no real
way to acknowledge a NMU anymore. Or would this just mean "a maintainer
upload happened after the NMU that didn't revert the changes"?
I've had an NMU in the past for a package when I had a little less time,
but the change was sound and correct. So I didn't bother to make an
(empty) MU just to acknowledge it - I think that should be OK and not
'punished' by taking it as a sign of an unmaintained package.
> Procedure to salvage a package
> -----------------------------------------
> 1) A bug with severity "serious" against the package in question must be
> filed, expressing the intent to take over maintainership of the package.
> The reporter may also offer co-maintenance of the package.
In my experience, a takeover of a package which is in dire need of some
love went most smoothly when it was done by just adding oneself as a
co-maintainer, not replacing the maintainer right away. This sends the
message that you want to help with the package, but doesn't send the
message that the current maintainer needs to go away.
Of course, if after a longer time the old maintainer still hasn't worked
on the package, he can be removed from the maintainer list (and may agree
to that if he sees that the new maintainer has done useful work).
I'd recommend to have the procedure advise principally that one just adds
oneself as a comaintainer, so to reword (1): "expressing the intent to add
oneself to the maintainer team for the package".
Cheers,
Thijs
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