Re: Facilitating contributions by newcomers

[Ghislain Vaillant]

On 09/11/14 21:44, Don Armstrong wrote:

On Sun, 09 Nov 2014, Christian Kastner wrote:

With the recent gamification of just-about-everything, I was wondering
whether following such an achievement-oriented approach, with
opportunities for contribution formulated as a list of specific tasks,
instead of general avenues, would be helpful in overcoming this
initial difficulty. (This would be in addition to mentors.debian.net
and other established avenues for entry to Debian, not a replacement).

This is an avenue that I'm interested in exploring for the BTS as well,
so if people have good ideas, or want to be involved with this, please
contact me in #debbugs on irc.debian.org, or email
ow...@bugs.debian.org.



Are you guys thinking of something like the Fedora "badges" or Ubuntu 
"accomplishments" ?


Ghis


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Re: Facilitating contributions by newcomers

[Christian Kastner]

On 2014-11-10 10:58, Ghislain Vaillant wrote:
> On 09/11/14 21:44, Don Armstrong wrote:
>> On Sun, 09 Nov 2014, Christian Kastner wrote:
>>> With the recent gamification of just-about-everything, I was wondering
>>> whether following such an achievement-oriented approach, with
>>> opportunities for contribution formulated as a list of specific tasks,
>>> instead of general avenues, would be helpful in overcoming this
>>> initial difficulty. (This would be in addition to mentors.debian.net
>>> and other established avenues for entry to Debian, not a replacement).
>> This is an avenue that I'm interested in exploring for the BTS as well,
>> so if people have good ideas, or want to be involved with this, please
>> contact me in #debbugs on irc.debian.org, or email
>> ow...@bugs.debian.org.
>>
> 
> Are you guys thinking of something like the Fedora "badges" or Ubuntu
> "accomplishments" ?

I wasn't aware of these, and they certainly look very interesting.

I didn't have this in mind when I wrote my original submission; I was
only thinking in terms of tasks as steps to complete when working
towards eventual DM or DD status.

But I can see that rewarding individual tasks with badges and the like
can have their appeal, especially for newcomers not yet having
aspirations of becoming DM/DD, instead only wishing to contribute a
little something back to Debian, even if it's just a one-off thing. I
think rewarding contributions in this fashion is a great way to inspire
an "I'm part of this" feeling in contributors.


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Re: about bug self-reporting

[Henrique de Moraes Holschuh]

On Mon, 10 Nov 2014, bilibop project wrote:
> I'm probably off-topic, but I fail to find the proper debian list for this 
> issue:

-mentors or -devel are fine.

> I've found two bugs in packages I maintain: an important bug in an optional
> package, and a RC bug in another package. Nobody has reported them. The
> Freeze Policy [1] says that the fixes for these bugs may be included in 
> jessie.
> My question is: is it welcome to file a bug report against my own package ?

Yes.  But you should make it an exemplary bug report: concise, complete, and
as bias-free as possible :-)

In fact, when you come across a grave or critical issue in your package, you
should file a bug immediately (to warn others), and then proceed with the
fixing...

-- 
  "One disk to rule them all, One disk to find them. One disk to bring
  them all and in the darkness grind them. In the Land of Redmond
  where the shadows lie." -- The Silicon Valley Tarot
  Henrique Holschuh


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Re: Facilitating contributions by newcomers

[Simon Chopin]

Quoting Christian Kastner (2014-11-10 11:41:39)
[snip]
> > Are you guys thinking of something like the Fedora "badges" or Ubuntu
> > "accomplishments" ?
> 
> I wasn't aware of these, and they certainly look very interesting.
> 
> I didn't have this in mind when I wrote my original submission; I was
> only thinking in terms of tasks as steps to complete when working
> towards eventual DM or DD status.
> 
> But I can see that rewarding individual tasks with badges and the like
> can have their appeal, especially for newcomers not yet having
> aspirations of becoming DM/DD, instead only wishing to contribute a
> little something back to Debian, even if it's just a one-off thing. I
> think rewarding contributions in this fashion is a great way to inspire
> an "I'm part of this" feeling in contributors.

As a side note, I have to point out that the Fedora badge infrastructure
is based on the fedmsg system, which means that we could probably
leverage that to get something working quickly.

That said, I haven't touched to fedmsg in a year, nor have I actually
looked at the code for the badge thingy. Maybe Nicolas (Cc-ed)  knows
more about it ?

Cheers
Simon


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Re: Facilitating contributions by newcomers

[Elena ``of Valhalla'']

On 2014-11-10 at 11:41:39 +0100, Christian Kastner wrote:
> But I can see that rewarding individual tasks with badges and the like
> can have their appeal, especially for newcomers not yet having
> aspirations of becoming DM/DD, instead only wishing to contribute a
> little something back to Debian, even if it's just a one-off thing. I
> think rewarding contributions in this fashion is a great way to inspire
> an "I'm part of this" feeling in contributors.

Speaking of giving an "I'm part of this" feeling: do you already 
know about contributors_?

It is meant to track contributions to Debian, with the aim to thank
both newcomers and continuing contributors, altought it doesn't 
work at the single task level, but is more focused on continuity.

Some more informations about it are available on the announce_ email.

.. _contributors: https://contributors.debian.org/
.. _announce: 
https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2013/12/msg9.html

-- 
Elena ``of Valhalla''


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Re: Facilitating contributions by newcomers

[Paul Wise]

On Mon, Nov 10, 2014 at 3:20 AM, Christian Kastner wrote:

> With the recent gamification of just-about-everything, I was wondering
> whether following such an achievement-oriented approach, with
> opportunities for contribution formulated as a list of specific tasks,
> instead of general avenues, would be helpful in overcoming this initial
> difficulty. (This would be in addition to mentors.debian.net and other
> established avenues for entry to Debian, not a replacement).

Great idea, lets kick this off right here with a simple coding task!

> Tasks
> =
>
> I see a task having, at least, the following properties:
>
>   * A specific objective (bug fix, enhancement, debugging, cleanup,
> documentation, translation, ...). This should probably be tied to a
> Debian bug number.

I would like for check-all-the-things to have support matching files
based on MIME type and most of the existing tests to have associated
MIME types.

https://anonscm.debian.org/cgit/collab-maint/check-all-the-things.git

>   * A description of the required skills (packaging, debugging, C, ...)

Python coding, git version control

>   * A difficulty rating (1:low to 5:very high)

Relatively low (2)

>   * An estimation for the amount of work to be done (hours, days)

1-2 hours

>   * An urgency (influenced by severity, popcon, ...)

Low urgency.

>   * A list of one or more mentors will to help.

I'll help.

-- 
bye,
pabs

https://wiki.debian.org/PaulWise


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Bug#769007: RFS: c-vtapi/0+20141106-1 [ITP] -- VirusTotal C API library

[Dylan]

Package: sponsorship-requests
Severity: wishlist

Dear mentors,

I am looking for a sponsor for my package "c-vtapi":

Package name: c-vtapi
URL: https://github.com/VirusTotal/c-vtapi/
License: Apache-2.0

It builds these binary packages:

  libcvtapi-dbg - VirusTotal C API debugging symbols
  libcvtapi-dev - VirusTotal C API development files
  libcvtapi-doc - VirusTotal C API library documentation
  libcvtapi1 - VirusTotal C API library

To access further information about this package, please visit the
following URL:

http://mentors.debian.net/package/c-vtapi

Alternatively, one can download the package with dget using this command:

dget -x
http://mentors.debian.net/debian/pool/main/c/c-vtapi/c-vtapi_0+20141106-1.dsc

Changes since the last upload:

* Initial release (Closes: #768594)

Regards,
Dylan

Bug#769008: RFS: qt-virustotal-uploader/1.2+20141106-1 [ITP] -- VirusTotal Uploader written in C++ using QT framework

[Dylan]

Package: sponsorship-requests
Severity: wishlist

Dear mentors,

I am looking for a sponsor for my package "qt-virustotal-uploader":

Package name: qt-virustotal-uploader
URL: https://github.com/VirusTotal/qt-virustotal-uploader/
License: Apache-2.0

It builds these binary packages:

qt-virustotal-uploader - VirusTotal Uploader written in C++ using QT
framework

To access further information about this package, please visit the
following URL:

http://mentors.debian.net/package/qt-virustotal-uploader

Alternatively, one can download the package with dget using this command:

dget -x
http://mentors.debian.net/debian/pool/main/q/qt-virustotal-uploader/qt-virustotal-uploader_1.2+20141106-1.dsc

Changes since the last upload:

* Initial release (Closes: #768593)

Regards,
Dylan

Bug#769009: RFS: pylint-plugin-utils/0.2.2-1

[Joseph Herlant]

Package: sponsorship-requests
Severity: wishlist

Dear mentors,

I am looking for a sponsor for my package "pylint-plugin-utils"

 * Package name: pylint-plugin-utils
   Version : 0.2.2-1
   Upstream Author : Carl Crowder 
 * URL : https://github.com/landscapeio/pylint-plugin-utils
 * License : GPL-2.0+
   Section : python

It builds those binary packages:

  python-pylint-plugin-utils - Utilities and helpers for writing Pylint
plugins (Python 2)
  python3-pylint-plugin-utils - Utilities and helpers for writing Pylint plugins
(Python 3)

To access further information about this package, please visit the
following URL:

  http://mentors.debian.net/package/pylint-plugin-utils


Alternatively, one can download the package with dget using this command:

dget -x 
http://mentors.debian.net/debian/pool/main/p/pylint-plugin-utils/pylint-plugin-utils_0.2.2-1.dsc

More information about pylint-plugin-utils can be obtained from
https://github.com/landscapeio/pylint-plugin-utils.

Changes since the last upload:

Initial release (Closes: #768566)


Regards,
Joseph Herlant


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Bug#769021: RFS: pylint-django/0.5.5-1 [ITP]

[Joseph Herlant]

Package: sponsorship-requests
Severity: wishlist

Dear mentors,

I am looking for a sponsor for my package "pylint-django"

 * Package name: pylint-django
   Version : 0.5.5-1
   Upstream Author : Carl Crowder 
 * URL : https://github.com/landscapeio/pylint-django
 * License : GPL-2.0+
   Section : python

It builds those binary packages:

  python-pylint-django - Pylint plugin for analysing code using Django
(Python 2)
  python3-pylint-django - Pylint plugin for analysing code using
Django (Python 3)

To access further information about this package, please visit the
following URL:

  http://mentors.debian.net/package/pylint-django


Alternatively, one can download the package with dget using this command:

dget -x 
http://mentors.debian.net/debian/pool/main/p/pylint-django/pylint-plugin-utils_0.5.5-1.dsc

More information about pylint-django can be obtained from
https://github.com/landscapeio/pylint-django.

Changes since the last upload:

Initial release (Closes: #768567)


Regards,
Joseph Herlant


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Binary package re-assignment

[Daniel Lintott]

Hi mentors,

I'm in the process of preparing new packaging for GNS3.

Currently source package gns3 produces one binary package also named
gns3. The newer version of the software has been split into a separate
gui/server (separate source packages).

For the new packaging I prose the following:
 Source  : Binaries
 gns3-server : gns3-server
 gns3-gui: gns3-gui, gns3 (metapackage depending on gui/server)

This creates a clash between the two gns3 binary packages. Therefore
what I propose is to modify the packaging of the old version to create a
gns3-legacy binary package, to give users the option of using the older
version should they wish to do so.

But at the same time providing an upgrade path from gns3 0.8.x to 1.x
(using the new gns3 metapackage).

Does this seem sane?

Regards

Daniel



signature.asc
Description: OpenPGP digital signature

Re: Facilitating contributions by newcomers

[Riley Baird]

>> Tasks
>> =
>>
>> I see a task having, at least, the following properties:
>>
>>   * A specific objective (bug fix, enhancement, debugging, cleanup,
>> documentation, translation, ...). This should probably be tied to a
>> Debian bug number.
> 
> I would like for check-all-the-things to have support matching files
> based on MIME type and most of the existing tests to have associated
> MIME types.
> 
> https://anonscm.debian.org/cgit/collab-maint/check-all-the-things.git

I'm thinking that I could just create a new file data/mime and put the
following in it:

[mime]
command = file --mime-encoding {files}

It seems to work, but when it is run, most non-text files just read as
'binary', so I doubt that this would be very helpful. If file is run
without the --mime-encoding flag, it normally guesses correctly, but it
doesn't present it in a 'mime' format.


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Re: Facilitating contributions by newcomers

[Roger Light]

Hi there,

I think this is a worthwhile idea, but would like to suggest that if
you're going to go down the approach of badges/accomplishments then it
would be good to consider how to encourage existing DDs to become
active in mentoring.

My experience is that making the package is the easy bit - the tricky
bit is getting someone to take notice, provide feedback and eventually
upload the package.

Regards,

Roger


On Sun, Nov 9, 2014 at 7:20 PM, Christian Kastner  wrote:
> The first steps in contributing to Debian are usually the hardest.
> Normally, new contributors are pointed to the standard docs [eg:
> 1,2,3,4,5], but processing such an amount of information is often a
> daunting task, and not a very fun one either.
>
> On the other hand, we have quite a few mentors who would like to help,
> but often do not have the bandwidth to walk a mentee through the entire
> process of, say, packaging a new software, or to mentor someone
> responding to a RFH.
>
> The WNPP list in itself is useful, but when looking at it again
> recently, I distinctly recalled how foreign most of the packages were to
> me when I first started contributing -- not a great motivator into
> getting involved with something. And I recognized a number of RFHs that
> have received numerous replies over the time, but couldn't be followed
> up upon with because RFHs are frequently the result of a lack of time in
> the first place (openldap anyone?).
>
>
> With the recent gamification of just-about-everything, I was wondering
> whether following such an achievement-oriented approach, with
> opportunities for contribution formulated as a list of specific tasks,
> instead of general avenues, would be helpful in overcoming this initial
> difficulty. (This would be in addition to mentors.debian.net and other
> established avenues for entry to Debian, not a replacement).
>
>
> Tasks
> =
>
> I see a task having, at least, the following properties:
>
>   * A specific objective (bug fix, enhancement, debugging, cleanup,
> documentation, translation, ...). This should probably be tied to a
> Debian bug number.
>
>   * A description of the required skills (packaging, debugging, C, ...)
>
>   * A difficulty rating (1:low to 5:very high)
>
>   * An estimation for the amount of work to be done (hours, days)
>
>   * An urgency (influenced by severity, popcon, ...)
>
>   * A list of one or more mentors will to help.
>
>
> Benefits for Mentees
> 
>
> For mentees, this would:
>
>   * Provide a much simpler entry point into contributing to Debian.
> Mentees would be able to start with smallish tasks fitting their
> skill and interest profile. They could start contributing without
> becoming overwhelmed with dozens of pages of dense documentation.
>
>   * I expect that would to eventually lead to a better understanding
> of Debian technically, and to closer personal contacts to the
> community.
>
>   * Later on, they could progress to the more difficult tasks, in
> preparation towards eventual DM or DD status.
>
>
> Benefits for Mentors
> 
>
> For mentors, I believe the benefits are even greater:
>
>   * Mentors willing to help but lacking time for full mentorship could
> still help with smaller tasks. Every little bit counts.
>
>   * A new avenue for getting things fixed in Debian (QA). Instead of
> having ancient O, RFA, and RFH bugs, some of which have been
> proven to be insurmountable, the relevant packages can be improved
> step-by-step.
>
>   * In a similar vein, regular Maintainers could off-load some of
> their work to mentees. I've seen enough bugs in packages where the
> only blocker seems to be "lack of time".
>
>   * Mentors could get another perspective on the history of a mentee's
> work within Debian.
>
>
> Costs
> =
>
> All in all, I think the additional cost to mentors wouldn't be that
> great. It should be easy to write up the tasks: that does not require
> time, only a lot of experience.
>
>
> I'd appreciate feedback on the idea; and if this turns out to be
> worthwhile I'll look into an implementation.
>
> Christian
>
>
> [1] https://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/
> [2] https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/maint-guide/
> [3] https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/developers-reference/
> [4] http://mentors.debian.net/
> [5] Package how-can-i-help
>
>
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>


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Re: Facilitating contributions by newcomers

[Riley Baird]

I agree, it is sometimes difficult to get someone to actually upload
your package.

Perhaps to encourage mentors, they too could get accomplishments for
sponsoring packages. There could even be a small prize for the DD who
sponsors the most packages in a given year.

On 11/11/14 08:12, Roger Light wrote:
> Hi there,
> 
> I think this is a worthwhile idea, but would like to suggest that if
> you're going to go down the approach of badges/accomplishments then it
> would be good to consider how to encourage existing DDs to become
> active in mentoring.
> 
> My experience is that making the package is the easy bit - the tricky
> bit is getting someone to take notice, provide feedback and eventually
> upload the package.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Roger
> 
> 
> On Sun, Nov 9, 2014 at 7:20 PM, Christian Kastner  wrote:
>> The first steps in contributing to Debian are usually the hardest.
>> Normally, new contributors are pointed to the standard docs [eg:
>> 1,2,3,4,5], but processing such an amount of information is often a
>> daunting task, and not a very fun one either.
>>
>> On the other hand, we have quite a few mentors who would like to help,
>> but often do not have the bandwidth to walk a mentee through the entire
>> process of, say, packaging a new software, or to mentor someone
>> responding to a RFH.
>>
>> The WNPP list in itself is useful, but when looking at it again
>> recently, I distinctly recalled how foreign most of the packages were to
>> me when I first started contributing -- not a great motivator into
>> getting involved with something. And I recognized a number of RFHs that
>> have received numerous replies over the time, but couldn't be followed
>> up upon with because RFHs are frequently the result of a lack of time in
>> the first place (openldap anyone?).
>>
>>
>> With the recent gamification of just-about-everything, I was wondering
>> whether following such an achievement-oriented approach, with
>> opportunities for contribution formulated as a list of specific tasks,
>> instead of general avenues, would be helpful in overcoming this initial
>> difficulty. (This would be in addition to mentors.debian.net and other
>> established avenues for entry to Debian, not a replacement).
>>
>>
>> Tasks
>> =
>>
>> I see a task having, at least, the following properties:
>>
>>   * A specific objective (bug fix, enhancement, debugging, cleanup,
>> documentation, translation, ...). This should probably be tied to a
>> Debian bug number.
>>
>>   * A description of the required skills (packaging, debugging, C, ...)
>>
>>   * A difficulty rating (1:low to 5:very high)
>>
>>   * An estimation for the amount of work to be done (hours, days)
>>
>>   * An urgency (influenced by severity, popcon, ...)
>>
>>   * A list of one or more mentors will to help.
>>
>>
>> Benefits for Mentees
>> 
>>
>> For mentees, this would:
>>
>>   * Provide a much simpler entry point into contributing to Debian.
>> Mentees would be able to start with smallish tasks fitting their
>> skill and interest profile. They could start contributing without
>> becoming overwhelmed with dozens of pages of dense documentation.
>>
>>   * I expect that would to eventually lead to a better understanding
>> of Debian technically, and to closer personal contacts to the
>> community.
>>
>>   * Later on, they could progress to the more difficult tasks, in
>> preparation towards eventual DM or DD status.
>>
>>
>> Benefits for Mentors
>> 
>>
>> For mentors, I believe the benefits are even greater:
>>
>>   * Mentors willing to help but lacking time for full mentorship could
>> still help with smaller tasks. Every little bit counts.
>>
>>   * A new avenue for getting things fixed in Debian (QA). Instead of
>> having ancient O, RFA, and RFH bugs, some of which have been
>> proven to be insurmountable, the relevant packages can be improved
>> step-by-step.
>>
>>   * In a similar vein, regular Maintainers could off-load some of
>> their work to mentees. I've seen enough bugs in packages where the
>> only blocker seems to be "lack of time".
>>
>>   * Mentors could get another perspective on the history of a mentee's
>> work within Debian.
>>
>>
>> Costs
>> =
>>
>> All in all, I think the additional cost to mentors wouldn't be that
>> great. It should be easy to write up the tasks: that does not require
>> time, only a lot of experience.
>>
>>
>> I'd appreciate feedback on the idea; and if this turns out to be
>> worthwhile I'll look into an implementation.
>>
>> Christian
>>
>>
>> [1] https://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/
>> [2] https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/maint-guide/
>> [3] https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/developers-reference/
>> [4] http://mentors.debian.net/
>> [5] Package how-can-i-help
>>
>>
>> --
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>> with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debia

Re: Facilitating contributions by newcomers

[Jordan Metzmeier]

On Sun, Nov 9, 2014 at 1:20 PM, Christian Kastner  wrote:
> With the recent gamification of just-about-everything, I was wondering
> whether following such an achievement-oriented approach, with
> opportunities for contribution formulated as a list of specific tasks,
> instead of general avenues, would be helpful in overcoming this initial
> difficulty. (This would be in addition to mentors.debian.net and other
> established avenues for entry to Debian, not a replacement).

I really like this idea. I often spend more time looking for bugs or
tasks I can help with than actually doing productive work.

> Benefits for Mentees
> 
>
> For mentees, this would:
>
>   * Provide a much simpler entry point into contributing to Debian.
> Mentees would be able to start with smallish tasks fitting their
> skill and interest profile. They could start contributing without
> becoming overwhelmed with dozens of pages of dense documentation.
>
>   * I expect that would to eventually lead to a better understanding
> of Debian technically, and to closer personal contacts to the
> community.
>
>   * Later on, they could progress to the more difficult tasks, in
> preparation towards eventual DM or DD status.
>

How do you see the transition from a mentee to a DM going? I think
this might be where things get tough. When there are a pool of tasks
that you pick from, you have small interactions with a larger number
of DDs. However, the DM process now seems to be more oriented towards
having larger interactions. This is a problem I have been facing a for
a while. After 5 years of lurking/contributing, I only know one DD who
may consider advocating me for DM. I feel that spreading my work over
so many teams and package maintainers has not progressed me towards my
goal of DM. This type of system may put others in a similar situation.

Even with that said, anything the makes contributing easier for
newcomers is a good thing.

Regards,
Jordan Metzmeier


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Re: Facilitating contributions by newcomers

[Paul Wise]

On Tue, Nov 11, 2014 at 4:17 AM, Riley Baird wrote:

> I'm thinking that I could just create a new file data/mime and put the
> following in it:

That isn't really what I had in mind. I should have explained more
clearly. The match field for a test matches files based on their names
and the program passes the matched files to the tests. The mime
support should add a field mime-match that would cause the program to
match files based on their mime type (using python-magic) and add
those to the list of files matched by the match field.

-- 
bye,
pabs

https://wiki.debian.org/PaulWise


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Re: Facilitating contributions by newcomers

[Paul Wise]

On Tue, Nov 11, 2014 at 9:50 AM, Jordan Metzmeier wrote:

> I really like this idea. I often spend more time looking for bugs or
> tasks I can help with than actually doing productive work.

Please install the how-can-i-help package and use it when you are
looking for something to do.

> How do you see the transition from a mentee to a DM going?

Something like this:

Do a bunch of tasks through the proposed program.

Feel more confident in your knowledge of Debian.

Find some software in Debian that you use that isn't well maintained
or some software you use that isn't in Debian yet.

Decide you want to work on that software.

Start working on the package.

Find a sponsor for the package.

Do a few uploads through the sponsor.

Have the sponsor tell you to apply for NM because you are great.

Apply for NM.

> my goal of DM

Personally I would hope you and others would aim towards becoming full
members of Debian rather than just being able to upload a few packages
unsupervised.

-- 
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pabs

https://wiki.debian.org/PaulWise


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Re: Facilitating contributions by newcomers

[Paul Wise]

On Tue, Nov 11, 2014 at 10:06 AM, Paul Wise wrote:

> Have the sponsor tell you to apply for NM because you are great.
>
> Apply for NM.

I actually meant DM here, sorry for the confusion!

-- 
bye,
pabs

https://wiki.debian.org/PaulWise


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Re: Facilitating contributions by newcomers

[Jordan Metzmeier]

On Mon, Nov 10, 2014 at 8:06 PM, Paul Wise  wrote:
> Please install the how-can-i-help package and use it when you are
> looking for something to do.

Thanks for the pointer to this. i have looked at all those the sources
it provides, but it does provide a nice layout of the data.

>
>> How do you see the transition from a mentee to a DM going?
>
> Something like this:
>
> Do a bunch of tasks through the proposed program.
>
> Feel more confident in your knowledge of Debian.
>
> Find some software in Debian that you use that isn't well maintained
> or some software you use that isn't in Debian yet.

Both of these can be difficult. Debian already has a really large
collection of software, and people grab ITPs quickly on new software
that is popular.

It is possible to find packages that are not well maintained, but do
we have an interface for locating them? Even when they are located,
contributing to them isn't always easy, especially if the maintainer
is busy or MIA (assuming the package isn't team maint). I guess we do
have RFAs and orphaned packages, but not a lot of interesting software
ends up there.

>
> Decide you want to work on that software.
>
> Start working on the package.
>
> Find a sponsor for the package.

This makes the choice of package important. The more active the
upstream, the more uploads needed and the more interactions with the
sponsor.

>
> Do a few uploads through the sponsor.
>
> Have the sponsor tell you to apply for NM because you are great.
>
> Apply for NM.
>
>> my goal of DM
>
> Personally I would hope you and others would aim towards becoming full
> members of Debian rather than just being able to upload a few packages
> unsupervised.

Yes, that would be ideal but for me, that goal has felt too far out of
reach to really think about.

Regards,
Jordan Metzmeier


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Re: Facilitating contributions by newcomers

[Paul Wise]

On Tue, Nov 11, 2014 at 10:59 AM, Jordan Metzmeier wrote:

> Both of these can be difficult. Debian already has a really large
> collection of software, and people grab ITPs quickly on new software
> that is popular.

Ack, there is plenty of new package space in the long-tail of
specialised software though.

> It is possible to find packages that are not well maintained, but do
> we have an interface for locating them? Even when they are located,
> contributing to them isn't always easy, especially if the maintainer
> is busy or MIA (assuming the package isn't team maint). I guess we do
> have RFAs and orphaned packages, but not a lot of interesting software
> ends up there.

Some links:

https://wiki.debian.org/how-can-i-help
http://wnpp.debian.net/
http://wnpp-by-tags.debian.net/
https://www.debian.org/devel/wnpp/
https://udd.debian.org/cgi-bin/bapase.cgi

> This makes the choice of package important. The more active the
> upstream, the more uploads needed and the more interactions with the
> sponsor.

Indeed. Teams are probably the best place to get involved since there
is commonality of interest. Teams that have Debian blends also receive
additional sponsorship by Andreas Tille. Some other advice for finding
sponsors is in the mentors FAQ.

https://wiki.debian.org/Teams
https://wiki.debian.org/DebianPureBlends/SoB
https://wiki.debian.org/DebianMentorsFaq

> Yes, that would be ideal but for me, that goal has felt too far out of
> reach to really think about.

That makes me sad, it should be the opposite.

-- 
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pabs

https://wiki.debian.org/PaulWise


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Bug#750034: marked as done (RFS: apt-zeroconf/0.5.1-1 [ITP])

[Debian Bug Tracking System]

Your message dated Tue, 11 Nov 2014 04:23:20 +
with message-id 
and subject line closing RFS: apt-zeroconf/0.5.1-1 [ITP]
has caused the Debian Bug report #750034,
regarding RFS: apt-zeroconf/0.5.1-1 [ITP]
to be marked as done.

This means that you claim that the problem has been dealt with.
If this is not the case it is now your responsibility to reopen the
Bug report if necessary, and/or fix the problem forthwith.

(NB: If you are a system administrator and have no idea what this
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-- 
750034: http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=750034
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Contact ow...@bugs.debian.org with problems
--- Begin Message ---
Package: sponsorship-requests
Severity: wishlist

  Dear mentors,

  I am looking for a sponsor for my package "apt-zeroconf"

 * Package name: apt-zeroconf
   Version : 0.5.1-1
   Upstream Author : Apt Zeroconf Team
 * URL : https://launchpad.net/apt-zeroconf
 * License : GPL-2+
   Section : python

  It builds those binary packages:

apt-zeroconf - APT proxy to minimise internet usage

  To access further information about this package, please visit the
following URL:

  https://mentors.debian.net/package/apt-zeroconf


  Alternatively, one can download the package with dget using this
command:

dget -x
https://mentors.debian.net/debian/pool/main/a/apt-zeroconf/apt-zeroconf_0.5.1-1.dsc

  More information about apt-zeroconf can be obtained from
  https://mentors.debian.net/package/apt-zeroconf

  Changes since the last upload:

  * Initial release. (Closes: #456815) (Closes: #503965)

  Regards,

-- 
David Joshua Geary
Debian, The Universal Operating System 
I don't care what software you use so long as
  we only exchange files in open data formats
Open-Document 
Ogg 
PDF 

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Bug#764954: marked as done (RFS: profileswitcher/1.6.2-1 (ITP #749245))

[Debian Bug Tracking System]

Your message dated Tue, 11 Nov 2014 04:23:20 +
with message-id 
and subject line closing RFS: profileswitcher/1.6.2-1 (ITP #749245)
has caused the Debian Bug report #764954,
regarding RFS: profileswitcher/1.6.2-1 (ITP #749245)
to be marked as done.

This means that you claim that the problem has been dealt with.
If this is not the case it is now your responsibility to reopen the
Bug report if necessary, and/or fix the problem forthwith.

(NB: If you are a system administrator and have no idea what this
message is talking about, this may indicate a serious mail system
misconfiguration somewhere. Please contact ow...@bugs.debian.org
immediately.)


-- 
764954: http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=764954
Debian Bug Tracking System
Contact ow...@bugs.debian.org with problems
--- Begin Message ---
Package: sponsorship-requests
Severity: wishlist

Dear mentors,

I am looking for a sponsor for my package "profileswitcher"

 * Package name: profileswitcher
   Version : 1.6.2-1
   Upstream Author : Paolo Kaosmos 
 * URL : https://freeshell.de/~kaosmos/
 * License : GPL-3+
   Section : web

  It builds those binary packages:

xul-ext-profileswitcher - Mozilla extension to ease profiles management

  To access further information about this package, please visit the following
URL:

  http://mentors.debian.net/package/profileswitcher


  Alternatively, one can download the package with dget using this command:

dget -x
http://mentors.debian.net/debian/pool/main/p/profileswitcher/profileswitcher_1.6.2-1.dsc


Regards,
Yann Amar



-- System Information:
Debian Release: 7.6
  APT prefers stable
  APT policy: (990, 'stable'), (500, 'stable-updates'), (500, 
'proposed-updates')
Architecture: i386 (i686)

Kernel: Linux 3.2.0-4-486
Locale: LANG=fr_FR.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=fr_FR.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
Package profileswitcher has been removed from mentors.--- End Message ---

Re: Facilitating contributions by newcomers

[Jorge Sebastião Soares]

Hey,

I totally agree with making the start in Debian simpler.
The Debian policy document is thick and very general.
I much prefer to have focused recipes for the tasks at hand. On these
recipes one could include links to specifc parts of the policy.
I believe that deep interest in the Debian policy will come later and
naturally.
Having said that,

On Mon, Nov 10, 2014 at 9:58 AM, Ghislain Vaillant 
wrote:


> Are you guys thinking of something like the Fedora "badges" or Ubuntu
> "accomplishments" ?
>
>
It seems to me that if you do this, you turn it all into a silly XXI
century game. Essentially the extension of the monetary system to a
moneyless community.
Does it not go against the Debian ethos?

The reward IMO should be the completion of the task and the improvement of
the platform.

Regards,

Jorge

Re: Facilitating contributions by newcomers

[Jordan Metzmeier]

On Mon, Nov 10, 2014 at 8:01 PM, Paul Wise  wrote:
> On Tue, Nov 11, 2014 at 4:17 AM, Riley Baird wrote:
>
>> I'm thinking that I could just create a new file data/mime and put the
>> following in it:
>
> That isn't really what I had in mind. I should have explained more
> clearly. The match field for a test matches files based on their names
> and the program passes the matched files to the tests. The mime
> support should add a field mime-match that would cause the program to
> match files based on their mime type (using python-magic) and add
> those to the list of files matched by the match field.
>

I worked on this a bit and I don't think that python-magic (the debian
package) is all that useful here. It looks like it will only return
the text representation eg "Perl script, ASCII text executable" and
not the MIME type eg "text/x-perl". The python-magic module on pypi
does return this information, but doesn't appear to be packaged for
debian. I am not sure how the package name and namespace conflict
would be handled if it were to be packaged and uploaded.

I have attached a diff of a working example using the built-in
mimetypes module. This isn't a very big improvement since it's still
based on file extensions, but changing the check to use the
python-magic module on pypi should be trivial. I do not consider this
diff to be merge ready, as I would want to refactor some of the code
to make the additions cleaner.

When {file} is used, I changed it to use the file(1) command to match
on the mime type. This is probably best, but it is definitely slower
than simple filename matching. Ideally, {file} should use os.walk and
not find, but that will get into rewriting a pretty good chunk of the
code.

Regards,
Jordan Metzmeier
diff --git a/check-all-the-things b/check-all-the-things
index 1d47a53..adb5421 100755
--- a/check-all-the-things
+++ b/check-all-the-things
@@ -32,6 +32,7 @@ import shlex
 import stat
 import subprocess as ipc
 import sys
+import mimetypes
 from textwrap import TextWrapper
 from shutil import get_terminal_size
 
@@ -55,6 +56,7 @@ class UnmetPrereq(Exception):
 class Check(object):
 def __init__(self):
 self.match = None
+self.mime_match = None
 self._match_fn = id
 self.cmd = None
 self.cmd_nargs = None
@@ -86,6 +88,9 @@ class Check(object):
 def set_restrictions(self, value):
 self.restrictions = value.split()
 
+def set_mime_match(self, value):
+self.mime_match = value
+
 def get_sh_cmd(self, njobs=1):
 kwargs = {
 'files': '{} +',
@@ -96,18 +101,32 @@ class Check(object):
 if self.cmd_nargs > 0:
 fcmd = ['find -type f']
 if self.match is not None:
-if len(self.match) == 1:
-[wildcard] = self.match
-fcmd += ['-iname', shlex.quote(wildcard)]
-else:
-for wildcard in self.match:
-fcmd += ['-o', '-iname', shlex.quote(wildcard)]
-fcmd[1] = '\\('
-fcmd += ['\\)']
+fcmd = self.add_find_match(fcmd)
+elif self.mime_match is not None:
+fcmd = self.add_find_mime_match(fcmd)
 fcmd += ['-exec', cmd]
 cmd = ' '.join(fcmd)
 return cmd
 
+def add_find_match(self, fcmd):
+if len(self.match) == 1:
+[wildcard] = self.match
+fcmd += ['-iname', shlex.quote(wildcard)]
+else:
+for wildcard in self.match:
+fcmd += ['-o', '-iname', shlex.quote(wildcard)]
+fcmd[1] = '\\('
+fcmd += ['\\)']
+
+return fcmd
+
+def add_find_mime_match(self, fcmd):
+fcmd += ['-exec', 'bash', '-c',
+ """'[[ "$(file --mime $1)" == *%s* ]]'""" % self.mime_match,
+ '--', '{}', '\;']
+return fcmd
+
+
 def meet_prereq(self):
 if self.prereq is None:
 cmd = shlex.split(self.cmd)[0]
@@ -124,8 +143,14 @@ class Check(object):
 except ipc.CalledProcessError:
 raise UnmetPrereq('command failed: ' + self.prereq)
 
+def _match_mime(self, path):
+return mimetypes.guess_type(path)[0] == self.mime_match
+
 def is_file_matching(self, path):
-return self._match_fn(path)
+if self.mime_match:
+return self._match_mime(path)
+else:
+return self._match_fn(path)
 
 def parse_section(section):
 check = Check()
@@ -169,6 +194,7 @@ def main():
 continue
 if check.is_file_matching(path):
 matching_checks.add(name)
+
 for name, check in sorted(checks.items()):
 if not name in matching_checks:
 skip(skipped, name, 'no matching files')
diff --git a/data/perl b/data/perl
index 74731da..26243ba 100644
--- a/data/perl
+++ b/data/perl
@@ -1,10 +1,10 @@
 [perl-sy