On Thu, Jun 21, 2007 at 07:58:34PM +0200, Joey Schulze wrote: > If this thingy is only meant to bypass NM since it sucks or is pink > or whatever, just say so and the proposal will be considered as such. The NM process is designed to create new Debian Developers -- particularly with the ability to participate fully in the project, NMUing, hijacking packages, voting, raising and seconding GRs, following -private, creating new .debian.net services, accounts on dozens of machines, become a DPL delegate, run for DPL, represent Debian, do transverse activities across the distribution, etc. As such, we expect people who pass through NM to have a good understanding of a lot of things that don't matter if you're just going to maintain one or two packages. Changing NM to only pass on the knowledge necessary to maintain a couple of packages gives us DDs who don't have the knowledge to participate in the project in the way we expect DDs to. Forcing people through NM to participate in only that simple way makes that sort of contribution unnecessarily difficult, which means we end up with DDs, ie the people who *do* have the knowledge to do bigger projects in Debian, having to spend their time working on the smaller tasks because the other people who *could* do those simpler tasks are prevented from helping directly. > The NM process after all is meant to help new maintainers become > skilled maintainers of packages. It's much more than that these days -- there're extensive licensing questions, along with detailed questions about binary formats and complicated library packaging. > If we want to get them maintain > packages without going through NM we should not create a new stage > but drop or restructure the NM process. IMHO If there's some way of doing that that meets the above goals, I'd be happy to support it. I don't think there is though -- we do have two clases of contributors these days: people who want to be involved in hacking on the project as a whole, and people who just want to hack on a very small part of it -- and even if there was, I haven't seen much happening in making the n-m process easier or more efficient. Proposing an alternative resolution as an amendment might be a way to start, though? > When somebody becomes a DM without going through the NM process and > thus has no skills on packaging besides those required for the very > package they started with and now wants to package $cool_kde_application > which requires $not_so_cool_kde_libraries they also need to package > how are they supposed to do so? > Just go ahead without knowing what to do? No, they *cannot* go ahead because they're not authorised to upload any of those packages, or to do NEW uploads. If they want to do that, the obvious and supported way to do it would be: - talk to some KDE people who *do* know what to do - start hacking on the package outside of Debian - get it to a point where it's working okay - get a Debian KDE person to review the packaging, and fix any problems identified - ask the Debian KDE person to co-maintain the package - have the Debian KDE person upload the package to unstable (as a NEW package) with the DM listed as a co-maintainer - as problems are found in unstable, have the co-maintainers fix them and reupload If the Debian KDE person decides, at any point, that the DM is being incompetent at maintaining the package they can remove that DM's ability to work on that package by uploading a new version that removes the DM from the Maintainer/Uploaders field. So can the RM team or any other DD via NMU. Likewise if the package is removed from unstable, it can't be reuploaded by the DM because it needs a DD upload to get through NEW. If the DM is already experienced with KDE packaging and wants to package a new application, then they just need to find a DD they've already worked with on KDE stuff, and give them a packaged version to upload. In that case the DD might not feel the need to do as thorough review or be a co-maintainer, because they've already seen the DM in action maintaining similar packages. And if they turn out wrong, any DD can still do an NMU to fix problems, or, if necessary, hijack the package or get it removed from the archive. > I fear that the DM thingy is just invented to get more people maintain > packages in Debian without becoming properly involved, People should be able to contribute at the level they feel comfortable with; if that increases over time, that's great; if it stays constant or decreases, we shouldn't try to force them to do more than they want, or refuse to accept what they're willing to do. That doesn't mean lowering our standards of what we distribute, just being willing to accept packages that are able to be maintained to our standards more efficiently than we currently do. IMHO, YMMV, etc, of course. Cheers, aj
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