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Martin Meredith <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> I can definately understand some DD's views here - they seem to get
> nothing from ubuntu - have to wade through patches or whatever to try
> and find the useful stuff - have to do all this work to get all the
> stuff from ubuntu, because whatever ubuntu dev is doing things isn't
> contributing back to debian. This definately happens. There's no doubt
> about it.
>
> But, also - and I've had this experience myself - there are some DD's
> who just plain and simple dont want the stuff from ubuntu. I've had a
> couple of times where I've had an issue with a package - and realised
> it was a problem in debian and upstream too. Usually - I've contacted
> both upstream and the DD via Email about this - and have had various
> responses - for example, for one package - I sent about 7 emails over
> the space of a month, emailed upstream, tried to contact the DD on IRC
> - many a thing - but well - no response - and I've tried a couple of
> times with different issues to contact that developer regarding those
> issues - but have never had any awknowledgement, reply etc etc.
>
> I eventually gave up trying contacting that maintainer - and just
> carried on with the work in ubuntu - and worked with upstream. It's
> people like that that are spoiling it, as I've had experiences with
> other DD's who've been very helpful indeed.
This is definitely a problem, and it's not limited to Ubuntu
maintainers being ignored. Some Debian developers are completely
non-responsive to everybody, including users and fellow developers.
Being a volunteer project, a delay is understandable, but a month is
not. When a maintainer is unresponsive/uncooperative, they are
falling short of their duties as a package maintainer, and I think
that we do need a better mechanism for dealing with it, not least a
way to notify the project about it in the first instance.
We do have the Technical Committee, but this is mainly focussed upon
technical issues, and it's not widely known outside Debian. Perhaps
its role could be widened, or an alternative committee created to deal
with it.
[...]
> when one side isnt willing to work (I'm not on about projects as a
> whole - I'm on about individual people/maintainers) then it spoils
> the whole thing.
Agreed. I think Debian has gone past the size where non-responsive
maintainers can be coped with. They cause huge delays in big
transitions, because they hold up all dependent packages while others
do their work for them, and unmaintained and buggy packages lower the
quality of the distribution.
I don't know if you read my other mail, but I do find it hard to
cooperate with Ubuntu for my own package, because each time it has
been uploaded to Ubuntu it was done my a different person, so I don't
know who I should be cooperating /with/. For large and important
packages, this isn't a problem, but for others it's difficult.
Regards,
Roger
- --
Roger Leigh
Printing on GNU/Linux? http://gimp-print.sourceforge.net/
Debian GNU/Linux http://www.debian.org/
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