Here is a hopefully comprehensive, general answer to this question, not specific to your situation:
Freeze: During the release freeze, most Debian folks are focussed on getting the release out. Fixing RC bugs, fixing important bugs, doing upgrade testing, writing release notes, finalising the installer and live CDs. All these things are a higher priority than sponsoring packages that fix non-RC issues. Volume: There are not enough Debian contributors to package every piece of software nor enough Debian members to sponsor every package made by Debian contributors. This has always been the case and always will be the case, there is just so much free software out there and probably many more Debian contributors than Debian members. Time: Sponsorship is hard work and is a large time investment. Some Debian members might not have enough "Debian time" to do it at all and others might prefer to spend their time on doing work that they signed up to do, like maintian infrastructure or packages they are a maintainer for. Specialization: Debian contributors generally work on stuff they use or are otherwise are interested in. This can limit the scope of software that gets sponsored. With well-functioning teams, it can also mean that software for a specific area is well covered with sponsorship, debian-med is a good example. Unfortunately can mean Preferences: Different folks have different packaging preferences, some like cdbs, some debhelper, some dh, some yada. Your packaging choices will in part reduce the set of folks Responsibility: Sponsors take responsibility for your upload. Some folks might not want to take this responsibility on, if they didn't check the upload quite well enough and later it was discovered to contain malicious or buggy code, it would be their fault. This scares some people away from doing sponsorship. Some folks are scared of uploading new packages in case it turns out the contributor will disappear after one upload. Infrastructure: In the past we had pretty poor ways of matching packages to be sponsored with potential sponsors based on the above criteria. This is improving with the new developments in mentors.d.n but still needs work (AFAIK). Emphasis: >From memory, when I joined, sponsorship wasn't emphasised quite as much as other activities in Debian, so less folks considered taking it on at all. This may have changed already or perhaps we need to adjust our new-member documents. More: We have had this discussion many times over the years, you might want to look at the archives for this list to find out some more reasons for the general lack of sponsors or for fleshing out the above reasons. Increasing your chances: Keep trying! Don't stop after a month of not being able to find a sponsor. Continue maintaining the package on mentors.d.n/etc and you can increase sponsors confidence in your abilities and your committment to Debian. Relationships with sponsors. It is easier to get sponsored by someone who already knows your work from another area in Debian, like core software (dpkg/apt/gcc/etc), core QA infrastructure (the PTS, DDPO, etc), the website or other areas. If you are able to, come to DebConf and meet the folks who could potentially sponsor your packages. Increase the quality of your package. Check it against various checklists. Check it with various automatic tools like lintian. Look at the PTS page for your package and at the links on that page. Do reviews for other folks looking for sponsorship and ask them to review your package in return. http://wiki.debian.org/SponsorChecklist http://wiki.debian.org/LucaFalavigna/NEWChecklist http://ftp-master.debian.org/REJECT-FAQ.html http://wiki.debian.org/HowToPackageForDebian#Check_points_for_any_package http://mentors.debian.net/intro-reviewers More tips listed in the FAQ: http://wiki.debian.org/DebianMentorsFaq#Where_else_can_I_get_a_sponsor.3F http://wiki.debian.org/DebianMentorsFaq#What_happens_if_I_can.27t_find_a_sponsor.3F -- bye, pabs http://wiki.debian.org/PaulWise -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-mentors-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/CAKTje6G==s-epmmcoz34dvkofjvpowxslh7b6ggvs+j8d0a...@mail.gmail.com
