Hi, I'm one of the members in Debian JP, and a self candidate to a maintainer in Debian.
# I have sent application mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] at May 05 1999. # I have much curiosity at the processing time to join the Debian project. # (I waited to join XFree86 as a non-voting member just 11days, 2 years ago) In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Atsuhito Kohda <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > From: Andreas Tille <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Subject: Re: Homapages in list of maintainers > Date: Fri, 7 May 1999 11:27:03 +0200 (METDST) > > By the way: is there really a need to split Debian JP from > > Debian?? Sounds curious for me. > No, completely no :-) My poor English may confuse you but > the aim of Debian JP is > - to help Debian to be more internationalized, > - and so Debian JP will contribute packages created by maintainers > of Debian JP to Debian. ... > But some barriers prevent us from becoming official maintainers > so the merging Debian JP into Debian does not work well now. I have heard that some self-candidates from Debian JP felt that the Debian Project rejects them as a maintainer, because: one of them had not receive no answers for long time, more than a month is too long enough for ordinary people. one of them did not have no English-written certificate, He was a high school student at that time, and did not have the passport. He can not get Driver's License since the laws in Japan prohibit those under 18-years-old to get the license, as well as many high school in Japan also prohibit their student to get the license as the school rules. (In fact, the Driver's License itself is no-use because that is all written in Japanese, so the required is not only the license itself, but also International License with extra fee.) He got the chance to meet fellow Debian maintainers face to face after all, but it takes some extra period and effort unnecessary. and one of them had not enough time to wait the oversea call at home. He worked at laboratory, and during the experimentation, he can't respond any call. The experimentation sometimes continues all over the night. He can make time to debianize some software and he already uploads some interesting packages to Debian JP, but he can't upload to Debian now although he himself wishes to do it. He wishes that let him know at least the time of calling in advance, so he can prepare to respond the call. Currently, nothing is to be known when the telephone rings, even at day, night, or midnight. "developers-reference" told us A phone number where we can call you. Remember that the new maintainer team usually calls during evening hours to save on long distance tolls. Please do not give a work number, unless you are generally there in the evening. but When is the "evening hours" ? or Where this "the evening hours" have meaning at ? We don't know where the person at new-maintainer lives in. If he lives in, say, NewYork city, "the evening hours" may be 17:00-21:00 there, and 07:00-11:00 morning here. Without the announce in advance, those who lives in Japan have some difficulty to continue to wait a telephone call hopelessly for a few months at such working time. Some days ago, the dispute arose on Debian JP project, about the release of next JP Packages. We think that the JP Packages should (at least) be slim as much as we can, and our goal is the abolishment of JP Packages (all JP Pacakges either go into Debian or get being unnecessary, that means we do not require the separate localized packages to handle with our language). Some members including current Debian maintainers (whom we call as "official maintainers") insist that the action should have taken now to speed up the contribution of JP packages into Debian. The proposed action is to make an explicitly declaration that "official" maintainers can freely take and move the JP packages debianized by non "official" maintainers. Why is this needed ? There is a barrier or filter to be a maintainer on Debian currently, and it is easy to take and move than to wait patiently the willing JP member to be registered as a maintainer. BTW, related to that dispute, an "official" maitainer said the "filter" works effectively. Is this the common idea to Debian people ? Does Debian needs the filter to trap and drop the willing self-candidate who have made and maitained a qualified package already ? "developers-reference" told us: The process of registering as a developer is a process of verifying your identity and intentions. As the number of people working on Debian GNU/Linux has grown to over 400 people and our systems are used in several very important places we have to be careful about being compromised. Therefore, we need to verify new maintainers before we can give them accounts on our servers and letting them upload packages. I understand (or at least hope to understand) this and I think also some verification mechanism is required. But I doubt the enoughness and effectiveness of the current processing mechanism. "developers-reference" told us also: Once this information is received and processed, you should be contacted with information about your new Debian maintainer account. If you don't hear anything within 7-14 days, please send a followup message asking if your original application was received. Do not re-send your original application, that will just confuse the new-maintainer team. Please be patient, especially near release points; mistakes do occasionally happen, and people do sometimes run out of volunteer time. so according to this, I should be waiting at least more 11 days patiently before sending a followup. P.S. I think, and hope that the Debian is "open" project. -- Taketoshi Sano: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>