On Thu, Mar 11, 2004 at 06:19:46PM +0000, Martin Michlmayr wrote:
> * Branden Robinson <branden@debian.org> [2004-03-09 01:07]:
> > I fully agree with you that it's important to follow the documented
> > procedure when leaving the project, but I don't think you're going
> > to persuade more people to avoid silently "idling out" by
> > threatening some sort of denigrated status. People at risk of doing
> > so are only going to brought back from the brink by some sort of
> > *postitive* reinforcement, not the threat of punishment.
>
> Just for the record, I don't "threaten" people to "denigrate their
> status".
Okay. Let's recall the exchange that led to my paragraph you quoted
above:
On Fri, Mar 05, 2004 at 02:49:23AM +0000, Martin Michlmayr wrote:
> > > * Branden Robinson <branden@debian.org> [2004-03-04 21:21]:
> > > > People who have simply become inactive should be treated as much
> > > > like those who have resigned as possible. We should thank them for
> > > > their efforts, put them on the emeritus keyring, and find new
> > > > maintainers for their packages.
> > >
> > > I disagree with this. I think that maintainers who neglect their
> > > duties and don't follow documented procedures (orphan their packages,
> > > inform the keyring maintainer that they are leaving the project [1])
> > > should not be treated the same as maintainers who leave the project
> > > properly.
So, given that you don't think "maintainers who neglect their duties and don't
follow documented procedures" should "be treated the same as maintainers who
leave the project properly", how do you propose to treat them?
It's clear you want to treat them differently. Do you propose treating
them *better* than "maintainers who leave the project properly"? That
hardly seems likely, as I suspect we all want to promote, not
discourage, adherence to procedures that make it easier to maintain or
improve the quality of our distribution.
[description of what you do when people don't actually leave the project
snipped]
> I don't threaten people saying that if they don't retire properly from
> the project they won't be re-admitted or anything like that.
...but you do want to make sure they're not retired "with full honors",
right? You don't want to treat them the same as maintainers who leave
the project properly, so how do you propose to treat them? If your
different treatment isn't distinguishable from a motivational standpoint
(lazy maintainer: "oh no, I'd better retire properly, or I won't get
$FOO"), then why bother having a different procedure?
Contrarily, if the unspecified different treatment you propose *is*
distinguishable from a motivational standpoint, how could a reasonable
person not view it as punishment? What parts of my suggested course of
action ("We should thank them for their efforts, put them on the
emeritus keyring, and find new maintainers for their packages.") do you
propose we *not* do for maintainers whom we cannot locate, or who refuse
to retire according to the proper procedure?
By the way, I didn't imply you'd threaten people with being barred from
re-admission. What I said was:
> > > I believe any procedure permitting an emeritus developer back into
> > > the project should evaluate the circumstances surrounding their
> > > departure. Both for people who properly resigned and for those
> > > who idled out, we're going to need to be asking them if they think
> > > they'll have the time and energy to uphold their responsibilities
> > > this time around.
> > >
> > > We can make those questions a little more pointed and rigorous for
> > > the idlers, if need be. Let's also not forget that we can
> > > actually refuse them re-entry, if they really have lost that much
> > > of our respect.
...so I'd be most grateful if you wouldn't quote me out of context.
> (Anyway, I perform this work with my QA hat and not with my DPL hat,
> so it's not really relevant to the discussion;
Eh? It is if you ask the DAMs to retire the developer without any
request on his or her part. Have you ever done so?
--
G. Branden Robinson | It doesn't matter what you are
Debian GNU/Linux | doing, emacs is always overkill.
branden@debian.org | -- Stephen J. Carpenter
http://people.debian.org/~branden/ |
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