On Thu, Jun 21, 2007 at 02:50:59PM +0100, Anthony Towns wrote:
> Hey all,
>
> So here's a proposal for the Debian Maintainers idea that's been floating
> around for some time now [0].
Before pushing the DM proposal, I'd like that some more attempts to
fix NM have been done. I mean, for about 2 years, we have seen regular
improvements in the NM delays. It's now common to have an AM report in
less than 3 months, which is very reasonable.
There is currently 2 sources of bottleneck remaining after the
improvements done: one is the AM or NM taking too much time to answer,
the second one is the time that DAM needs to process applications and
create new accounts. I think we can improve things on both with simple
methods.
AM delays
~~~~~~~~~
For the former, well, if it's because of the NM taking too much time,
the AM usually put their applicant on hold. That works (IMHO) quite
fine, and is not a problem. OTOH AM being to slow is one, and happens. I
think FD should be more preemptive on that matter. I mean, we could draw
some not too formal lines, like: an AM should not answer in more than a
couple of weeks to answer.
I mean it's totally OK if he's going on vacation, but some AMs are
completely active on the lists, and well, are just not fit to be AMs.
FD should preempt them more aggressively. And IMHO this is totally
acceptable, because when a DD does a poor job at a given time on a
package, then after some time, like a couple of weeks, you are perfectly
allowed to NMU, and to me, a FD preemption is the same.
DAM delays
~~~~~~~~~~
This part can IMHO be improved a lot as well. I _think_ DAM could
decide to process applicants at given dates, in a predictable way. I
mean, DAM could decide to process applicants every 2 or 3 months[0].
That would give the NMs some deadlines, and this helps a lot with
frustration.
Yes, I know we are volunteers, and that it's not acceptable to have
requirements on _people_. Though I find it completely acceptable, and
even sound to have requirements on our Core Teams. And their members are
free to organize the team to cope with them how they want. And if the
Team can't cope, then maybe it's that it's too small. And here is the
second benefit of the method: it not only gives deadlines to the people
waiting in the queue, it also helps detecting an overloaded team.
Upload rights
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
With those two previous points in place, I still think that DM has one
idea right: give upload rights early. It's good because if NM is not a
learning area for packaging stuff, before NM you never uploaded to
Debian, and many NMs are quite frightened by their first upload ever.
Having a smooth transition from the Sponsoree state to the full DD one,
through a period where you are allowed to upload some of your packages
with very lessoverview from your sponsor (but him still being aware and
watching behind the scenes) IS excellent.
So I also think that the jetring idea has to be explored and
implemented for those people, that have P&P right, until they are full
DDs.
Cheers,
[0] those dates do not need to be formally defined, but the monthes
when applications will go forward could be decided for example 6
months in advance, so that it won't become too much of a burden.
--
·O· Pierre Habouzit
··O madcoder@debian.org
OOO http://www.madism.org
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