Re: About expulsion requests
Russ Allbery [EMAIL PROTECTED] Maybe we can convince more people to ignore such public statements unless the expulsion process *actually* starts (which so far as I can tell has yet to ever happen). I think there have been at least two expulsion processes started, but both have ended at step 2 of http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2005/08/msg5.html after failing to gather support (because they weren't last resort requests IMO). Hope that helps, -- MJR/slef Laux nur mia opinio: vidu http://people.debian.org/~mjr/ Bv sekvu http://www.uk.debian.org/MailingLists/#codeofconduct -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Congratulations
It will not surprise you, A.J., that my own ballot did not rank you particularly highly. A.J. wrote: So, first, thanks to all the folks who've offered congratulations ... Let me join them. ... and thanks to everyone who participated in the election, whether by standing for DPL, by putting your name up for one of the DPL teams or otherwise offering to help whoever's elected, by voting, by participating in the discussions on -vote, Planet or IRC, or by helping coordinate or organise the election and debates. Fair enough. A particular shout out to Manoj, who's not only set an excellent standard for ensuring our election process is efficient, transparent and reliable, but raised it every year. [...] So if you're one of the 17% or so of voters who would've rathered rerun the election than have me win it, or are otherwise disappointed in the result, I'd encourage you to spend a little bit of time thinking over your options, and in particular to realise that, no matter what happens, you always have the option of ignoring it -- the constitution absolutely guarantees you can't be forced to do anything you disapprove of. The worst case is presumably that you spend time improving some localised area of Debian, or focus on an upstream project, or a derived distro, or an alternate distro -- and as long as you keep working on free software, you're likely to continue benefiting from Debian's work, and Debian's likely to continue benefiting from yours -- all of which is still absolutely a good thing. So don't be afraid to act (or not act) according to your conscience: at worst, even if I'm wrong and Debian somehow ends up not diverse enough for you, the broader Debian community, and the free software community at large, definitely is and will remain so. Of course, the real challenge is for all the folks who thought I'd be a good DPL to ensure that in twelve months time we don't have to avoid eye contact with that 17% and listen to the I told you so's... Fortunately that problem isn't quite here yet, so the details for that can wait a few days at least. :) As in recent DPL elections, the personality of James Troup was a pivotal issue in this one. No credible DPL candidate except James himself could have been as closely associated with James in the minds of the voters as you. Although individual voters surely had many reasons, overall it is hard not to interpret the election as a vote of confidence in you, James and the existing FTPmaster regime. We all knew where you stood on the issue. The vote was narrow, but you won, fair and square. The victory lends clarity to the issue. This in itself is a positive development. Good luck, Leader. Best wishes from the loyal opposition. Active, unstinting cooperation from me during the year, you can depend on. -- Thaddeus H. Black 508 Nellie's Cave Road Blacksburg, Virginia 24060, USA +1 540 961 0920, [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED] signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Third call for votes for the debian project leader election 2006
On Fri, Apr 07, 2006 at 07:31:12PM +0900, JC Helary wrote: Did it ever occur to you that one can be an active Debian contributor and not use Debian at all ? No. And even if it did, I fail to see how that is relevant here. You cannot be an active Debian contributor without knowing about its culture, which is what Marc was talking about. What is Debian more than a sum of packages that for some require translations, when seen from a FOSS translator ? You know, you were *very* close to insulting me here, until I noticed that you were speaking hypothetically. You might want to make that more clear next time ;-) I'm sure some people think that way, and I have nothing against that. However, if such people want voting rights, that means they want to be part of our community. If they want to be part of our community, I don't think it's too much to ask for them to understand our community, and thus, our culture. People who're looking at Debian as a bunch of packages in need of translation, but otherwise not very interesting are not likely to be interested in voting rights. They are, thus, completely outside of the scope of this discussion. Why do you think there is a need to understand whatever Debian culture there is to technically contribute to the project ? There is none. There is, however, a need to understand the Debian culture if you want voting rights. -- Fun will now commence -- Seven Of Nine, Ashes to Ashes, stardate 53679.4 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Third call for votes for the debian project leader election 2006
On Fri, Apr 07, 2006 at 07:33:48PM +0900, JC Helary wrote: On 2006/04/07, at 1:39, Wouter Verhelst wrote: But requiring people who are not software developers to understand they suddenly have become developers because Debian is special is a little far fetched. I don't see why. Because the term does not apply to non coders in a normal software context. No, but it does apply to non coders in a Debian context, and that's what Debian is about. And the NMP implies that too whatever provisions have been made in trying to adapt the text to the present project. Sorry, I can't parse that. -- Fun will now commence -- Seven Of Nine, Ashes to Ashes, stardate 53679.4 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Third call for votes for the debian project leader election 2006
On Sat, Apr 08, 2006 at 12:52:36AM +0300, Eddy Petrişor wrote: On 4/7/06, Micah Anderson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I'm sorry. If we can't trust these people not to abuse upload privileges, then I certainly do not want to see them get a say in deciding how we conduct the project's business. By your argument, then the USA should give all its citizens access to our nuclear arsenal, launch codes, etc. because we trust them to have a say in deciding how the government is run. Hmm, I see, you see yourself as government. No. In a democratic government, everyone who is part of the electorate gets to decide how the government is run, and the government is to report to the electorate. That isn't actually the same thing. That would explain the dictatorial thinking as every governship tends to enslave the governed people. Err, no. You should think of yourself as a representative of the users instead of their master. No; in every democratic government, the electorate is the government's boss. [...] -- Fun will now commence -- Seven Of Nine, Ashes to Ashes, stardate 53679.4 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Third call for votes for the debian project leader election 2006
On Fri, Apr 07, 2006 at 07:27:52PM +0900, JC Helary wrote: Which makes Maintainer unsuitble for translation maintainers how, exactly? Because translators mostly don't maintain translations but plainly contribute translations. Err, no. It is generally preferred that those who translated the previous version of a given document will do the next version, too, unless they specifically decide otherwise. In that respect, try running man podebconf-report-po. Ie. Translators mainly _translate_. You are so mistaken. And yes, I do know what I'm talking about -- I happen to be involved with the translation to Dutch. -- Fun will now commence -- Seven Of Nine, Ashes to Ashes, stardate 53679.4 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Reforming the NM process
Hi,
Marc 'HE' Brockschmidt:
For package maintainers, an intensive package check follows. If
everything went fine, these people get upload permissions for *these*
packages (and nothing else). If they want to adopt new packages, their
AM does a package-check once and fitting upload permissions are
added. We may need to create tools to automate this, as it could become
quite much work for the DAM.
Why not ftpmaster? Just add, to their PASS this package command
(I assume, naïvely perhaps, that such a command exists), an add
the package to the uploader's list of permissible packages feature.
--
Matthias Urlichs | {M:U} IT Design @ m-u-it.de | [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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Re: Reforming the NM process
On 4/11/06, Marc 'HE' Brockschmidt [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: (...) 3. Conclusions == (..) I'd like to implement the proposals I made in (2.1) and (2.2) as fast as possible, especially applying the rules in (2.2) to people already in the queue waiting for an AM. (2.3) is, as I said, a long-term thingy - it would be nice if it could happen at some point, but many details are not yet worked out, the infrastructure needs to be changed for it and we really need to decide if this is actually a good way. I agree with 2.1 (Multiple advocates) and in part with 2.2 (Requiring (more) work before applying). In part because it will help us block some newcomers that aren't really into it, but we've some problems already and starting the changes requiring more stuff from everybody will discard more valuable contributors too! I strongly disagree that 2.3 is a long-term thing. It should be started years ago, but it isn't too late yet. We should push it with a transition plan in mind (e.g: what we're going to do with the people that is already waiting for DAM?), but the transition couldn't require (more) work before applying, IMHO. We should block not really interested people giving less privileges for those who do less as you pointed out and be good with MIA and its procedures. I step in to help writing a 1-year transition plan and contact the people that needs to accept/reject some points, if you want. Thanks, -- stratus
Reforming the NM process
Heya, Problems with the New Maintainer process have been a regular topic on Debian mailing lists in the past few months. As I'm both interested in not reading more flamewars and actually improving things, I've summarized my experiences and tried to come up with something that is perhaps able to fix most of the problems. Please note that this is *my* opinion, not something decided by the NM team. 1. Current situation The New Maintainer process hasn't changed in the last few years, so I'm not really willing to come up with a description of the involved procedures. For reference, see the official documentation in the Debian New Maintainer Corner [1] and the excellent introduction given in the talk Hanna Wallach, Moray Allan and Dafydd Harries held last year [2]. 1.1 Known problems -- As Debian consists of volunteers, we have to work with an ever-shifting amount of free time the involved parties are willing to invest. This is not always based on a lack of free time, but also on demotivation, often so-called burn-out syndrome caused by repetitive procedures and a lack of positive variety. 1.1.1 Applicants Quite a lot of applicants are frustrated by the NM process. The reason for this are mostly unresponsive AMs, waiting for AM assignment or waiting for FD/DAM approval. This has become worse in the past few months, mostly because our mailing list archives show applicants that they're not alone with their problems, but nearly nothing has been done to improve the situation. Some applicants start the NM process with a wrong impression of the amount of time needed to finish successfully. This is part of the reason for the high number of people that are set on hold and eventually rejected by their AMs. They also block AMs, as it needs some time to identify this type of applicant. A larger group of applicants isn't really fit to be a DD (yet). The last year has shown an improving number of people applying early, both because it's a well-known fact that AM assignment needs another 6 months after the initial application and because they're urged to do so by their sponsors and advocates. These people show a lack of knowledge in basic parts of the PP checks and are usually not able to keep proper care of their packages, which comes up in the packaging check at the very end of the process. Luckily, the group of people that are just applying to get a cool @debian.org address is quite small. 1.1.2 Application Managers ~~ The lack of free Application Managers that led to the accumulation of applicants waiting for an AM is mostly based on the fact that many developers don't care about the NM process, so only a few people are actually helping out. These few people are normally quite active developers in other areas of the project, so their time resources are limited. They are also often bored by the usual questionnaire/answer games with applicants. A lack of motivation also affects the actual processing of applications, AMs are sometimes unresponsive in regard to NM things because they're too frustrated to actually sit down and finish the applications for NM they've accepted. They also don't reflect on this unresponsiveness and (almost) never ask for help or a substitute. The problems with applicants discussed above often frustrate AMs and add to the load of the NM process. 1.1.3 Front Desk That one's easy. Brian has not much time, I'm bored by reading the same answers over and over and over again. Also, the amount of time I'm able to invest fluctuates, as my studies sometimes take up quite a lot of time (usually right before exams...) 1.1.4 Debian Account Managers ~ The situation in this area has improved after Joerg Jaspert was added as new DAM, but his free time is also limited, while he keeps amassing other important jobs in the project. There is no urgent need to do something, but in the long term, another developer should be found to help out. 1.1.5 Template-driven, uniform and *boring* checks ~~ We encouraged AMs to use templates for communication with their applicants, to ensure that certain areas are covered by the questions. The downside is that the templates have grown to full-blown questionnaires, with questions often not fitting to the particular situation of NMs. It's not the most interesting way of showing your knowledge, also taking time for research and actual writing of the answers which could be used for projects useful for Debian. These templates have been the cause for some flamewars in the recent past. 1.2 Already proposed solutions -- Discussions in the past have lead to some proposals in this area, a short summary seems in order to point out problems. 1.2.1 Add more people ~ Adding more people to all teams has been proposed more than once, though it was
Re: Reforming the NM process
Le Mar 11 Avril 2006 18:40, Marc 'HE' Brockschmidt a écrit : I'd like to implement the proposals I made in (2.1) and (2.2) as fast as possible, especially applying the rules in (2.2) to people already in the queue waiting for an AM. I agree both points are a good thing, and should be implemented. Those two ideas (asking for more advocates, asking the applicants to show their work) have been proposed many times in the past, and will be efficient, since it will reduce incoming appliances. For 2.2, I'd recommend that NM's maintain a page about them on wiki.d.org (my current applicant did that, and I found that rather useful). In a glance you can see applicants that are not comited enough. -- ·O· Pierre Habouzit ··O[EMAIL PROTECTED] OOOhttp://www.madism.org pgpYF1RjV14kd.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Reforming the NM process
Hello, my comments as someone planning to enter NM during the next couple of month follow. Overall I find your analysis enlightening. I agree with those points I do not discuss here. 1.2.1 Add more people [Marc argues that this is not a long solution] I disagree here up to a certain point. I think having more people doing the job does help the problem even in the long term. The work is distributed on more shoulders, and people get less frustrated. Let me put it this way: I can imagine working at a conveyer belt for 1 hour a day, but I can't doing it a whole day. However, this assumes that more people are willing to do the job. 2.1 Multiple advocates 2.2 Requiring (more) work before applying I totally agree. 2.3 Separate upload permissions, system accounts and voting rights Unless you are not planning to have long term second class developers (i.e. developers with restricted rights), I don't think it is a good idea. The additional overhead IMO is not worth the effort for a few month. After all the goal of the proposal is that applicatants are not stuck in NM for so long any more. Best regards Ben -- Please do not send any email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- all email not originating from the mailing list will be deleted. Use the reply to address instead. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: About expulsion requests
Em Seg, 2006-04-10 às 21:30 +0200, Sven Luther escreveu: On Thu, Mar 16, 2006 at 03:51:19PM +0100, Christoph Berg wrote: I know that having codified expulsion procedures is tempting to use them, and I do think that they are a good thing to have. But please consider one thing when you think about invoking them: [1] As someone who wasd recently the target of one of those expulsion processes, i believe that what you propose is not enough. Sure. Let's just drop this procedure. It did us no good. I trust more the non-formal regulations inside Debian than this kind of formalism... daniel -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Reforming the NM process
Unless you are not planning to have long term second class developers Make this: Unless you are planning to have long term second class developers -- Please do not send any email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- all email not originating from the mailing list will be deleted. Use the reply to address instead. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Reforming the NM process
On 4/11/06, Marc 'HE' Brockschmidt [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: 2.1 Multiple advocates -- I agree with the rest of the suggestions, but I'm not sure that I agree with this one... I can think of two cases where this could be an unnecessary problem to someone who does actually contribute: 1) Someone who maintains a certain number of packages, but they are all sponsored by the same person. This person might be doing a lot of work, and be knowledgeable about Debian without interacting actively with anyone else apart from his/her sponsor... 2) Someone who does not have a fixed sponsor, but sends mails to -mentors asking for uploads whenever they need one. This person's work won't be appreciated by all of his/her sponsors, because they'd only see one of those packages, and not all the work done... (In this case, it's even difficult to get an advocate at all) Maybe we could ask for a more comprehensive advocation, that includes what contributions the applicant has made, and why would he/she be worthy of Debian. I don't think that increasing the number of advocates would be the solution. As I said, I do agree with all the rest of the suggestions. -- Besos, Marga
Re: Reforming the NM process
Hey Marc, Thanks for this initiative; I'd just decided to not get involved in the threads on -newmaint anymore because even though I feel strongly about the issue, the threads were just a repeat of themselves. However, your mail seems to be different, in that it comes from someone actually involved and that it has some concrete plans. 1.2.1 Add more people 1.2.2 Fewer checks 1.2.3 Drop Front Desk/merge with DAM I think these are still worthwhile to pursue, in the context of the other changes you propose below. Reforming the process could require some more fundamental changes, but is even more effective with streamlining in these areas. About the More People part, this is something that won't change when doing nothing, but could change when the demands on AMs are different (less boring, less unfit candidates). Merging the FD with DAM is also an item I still support, since I think it saves effort, and I don't see any drawbacks in doing so: worst case it will cost just as much time as now, but with a simpler structure. In the best case it will eliminate quite some duplicate checking of reports. 1.2.4 Task-based checks ~~~ Some people, including me, have discussed the possibility to use a task-based approach to the NM process. As far as I know, I'm the only AM who has actually finished this with an applicant. I've actually done this with my AM, Luk, and I'm quite satisfied with this. After doing this once, I'd not recommend it as a regular replacement for the checks based NM templates we use at the moment, mostly because of its time needs. I still would; it costs a bit more time, but that time actually yields results for Debian. This was more motivating for me, and it could be more rewarding for the AM. 2.1 Multiple advocates Yes, good idea. It seems that some DD's are advocating people to early. I would also advise to contact people who make too fast advocations about this matter, to tell them why this isn't right. If they keep on advocating people who aren't ready, you could of couse consider banning the respective DD from advocating, but I think some feedback would already make enough impression on most. 2.2 Requiring (more) work before applying Yes, agreed. If you don't do that amount of work already you could easily continue on the sponsored-basis we have. 2.3 Separate upload permissions, system accounts and voting rights This part is *very* experimental, I'd love to hear other people's opinions, suggestions and changes. I'm really not convinced that this is the perfect solution, but it has some very nice aspects. It is a bit of a generalization of the idea Anthony posted on his blog today. I like it. It formalizes the current sponsoring idea: it makes it a bit harder to actually have your first package sponsored, but not in a bad way. The little more effort wouldn't scare away those who are actually interested in maintaining a specific package, it's not at all like the NM process but more of a quick lintian check of an uploader. There should of course be provisions for people for whom it isn't that easy to get signatures from two DD's. Anyway, actual system accounts could either be given out at this stage or after another set of checks, though I don't see a reason to allow people to upload everything, but not log in on Debian boxes... I would keep it to the two stages you propose. Adding more stages doesn't add any real value while it unnecessarily complicates the procedure. Thanks for your mail, I look forward to some actual changes being made! Thijs signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: Reforming the NM process
On 4/11/06, Benjamin Mesing [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Unless you are not planning to have long term second class developers Make this: Unless you are planning to have long term second class developers No, no, no. Give someone the rights to vote or upload something for Debian isn't consider him second class developer, he/she won't be a developer (yet) ! It means that we will give enough privileges for those that wants to do X or Y tasks, e.g.: don't blocking Joe that just needs to prepare the packages of his two interesting tools, and knows how to prepare packages. Something that is being requested for ages. I think we need a better expression to call these new contributors. 'developers', 'new maintainers', 'mantainers' and probably just 'contributors' are too bad for this now. It's a interesting subject, but i'm going too away from the original topic. -- stratus
Re: Reforming the NM process
On Tue, 2006-04-11 at 15:07 -0300, Gustavo Franco wrote: On 4/11/06, Benjamin Mesing [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Unless you are not planning to have long term second class developers Make this: Unless you are planning to have long term second class developers No, no, no. Give someone the rights to vote or upload something for Debian isn't consider him second class developer, This was not intended as a rant. It might be useful to have different types of participants with different access rights. I was merely arguing, that I think it is not worth the effort to do this for people in NM, which they should leave sooner or later (rather sooner than later). If it is implemented as a long term membership (like, e.g. a doc-member who has no packaging rights) that's a different issue. Sorry that I was unclear about this. Best regards Ben -- Please do not send any email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- all email not originating from the mailing list will be deleted. Use the reply to address instead. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Third call for votes for the debian project leader election 2006
quote who=Don Armstrong date=Sat, Apr 08, 2006 at 12:49:08PM -0700 AMs, the DAM and other people in the project are more hesitant to grant developership to people with non-standard forms of contributions. Sometimes, it's simply harder to test for these because there aren't templates or even qualified AMs! Sure; it's basically a case of no one having yet figured out exactly how to do it. Great. That's somewhere to start. :) I don't think there's any way to make that easier until we have more people who fit into those positions wanting to become DDs. It's a bit more complex than that. You, for example, were active on -legal and in a few other non-technical ways but went through the package maintains NM route because you had technical abilities and because it seemed more straight forward and you didn't have to fight for your right to become a DD via non-traditional criteria. You see this happening a lot. The first few applicants going through the process in a new role will always take a bit longer, but they'll be helping develop the process too, so I'd hope that they'd be reasonably accepting of that. It is clear that our current NM process is prohibitive long for many potential contributors (we've had good contributors give or not bother). How many more of our potential pool do we lose by stretching it out a bit longer and asking people to argue for the importance of their contributions from a position of no power within the project? Regards, Mako -- Benjamin Mako Hill [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mako.cc/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Reforming the NM process
On Tue, 11 Apr 2006, Margarita Manterola wrote: 1) Someone who maintains a certain number of packages, but they are all sponsored by the same person. This person might be doing a lot of work, and be knowledgeable about Debian without interacting actively with anyone else apart from his/her sponsor... 2) Someone who does not have a fixed sponsor, but sends mails to -mentors asking for uploads whenever they need one. This person's work won't be appreciated by all of his/her sponsors, because they'd only see one of those packages, and not all the work done... (In this case, it's even difficult to get an advocate at all) Maybe we could ask for a more comprehensive advocation, that includes what contributions the applicant has made, and why would he/she be worthy of Debian. I don't think that increasing the number of advocates would be the solution. Given that advocating someone should then happen after he has done many contributions, I don't think it's a real problem. Someone could prepare his wiki page listing all the contributions and ask for advocates on -mentors (or even -newmaint), and I'm sure he will find 2 advocates quite easily. Cheers, -- Raphaël Hertzog Premier livre français sur Debian GNU/Linux : http://www.ouaza.com/livre/admin-debian/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Reforming the NM process
On Tue, 11 Apr 2006, Gustavo Franco wrote: I strongly disagree that 2.3 is a long-term thing. It should be started years ago, but it isn't too late yet. We should push it with a transition plan in mind (e.g: what we're going to do with the people that is already waiting for DAM?), but the transition couldn't require (more) work before applying, IMHO. We should block not really interested people giving less privileges for those who do less as you pointed out and be good with MIA and its procedures. I step in to help writing a 1-year transition plan and contact the people that needs to accept/reject some points, if you want. I don't understand what you have written. Can you reformulate it ? A long term plan can happen shortly if someone does it, but the change mentionned in 2.3 involve many people and as thus will required a great deal of coordination work. That's why Mark called it long term IMO. But with Anthony's recent blog post, I'm sure we'll start going into this direction. http://azure.humbug.org.au/~aj/blog/2006/04/12#2006-04-11-maintainers Cheers, -- Raphaël Hertzog Premier livre français sur Debian GNU/Linux : http://www.ouaza.com/livre/admin-debian/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Reforming the NM process
On 4/11/06, Raphael Hertzog [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Tue, 11 Apr 2006, Gustavo Franco wrote: I strongly disagree that 2.3 is a long-term thing. It should be started years ago, but it isn't too late yet. We should push it with a transition plan in mind (e.g: what we're going to do with the people that is already waiting for DAM?), but the transition couldn't require (more) work before applying, IMHO. We should block not really interested people giving less privileges for those who do less as you pointed out and be good with MIA and its procedures. I step in to help writing a 1-year transition plan and contact the people that needs to accept/reject some points, if you want. I don't understand what you have written. Can you reformulate it ? In short it's: Let us start with the long term ASAP, considering what we need during this transition. A long term plan can happen shortly if someone does it, but the change mentionned in 2.3 involve many people and as thus will required a great deal of coordination work. I agree. That's why Mark called it long term IMO. But with Anthony's recent blog post, I'm sure we'll start going into this direction. http://azure.humbug.org.au/~aj/blog/2006/04/12#2006-04-11-maintainers Interesting post. I disagree with the term Debian Maintainer, i think we can get rid of that with the old NM process. If the person has rights to vote or translate (considering a special infrastructure to do that in the future) what will be the term? I suggest Debian Uploader, Debian Translator, ... We can call Debian Developer or Debian Maintainers the person with full privileges, IMHO. Consider that new maintainer should be the DD candidate, at least during the transition. Thanks, -- stratus
Re: Reforming the NM process
On Tue, Apr 11, 2006 at 02:54:07PM -0300, Margarita Manterola wrote: On 4/11/06, Marc 'HE' Brockschmidt [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: 2.1 Multiple advocates -- I agree with the rest of the suggestions, but I'm not sure that I agree with this one... I can think of two cases where this could be an unnecessary problem to someone who does actually contribute: 1) Someone who maintains a certain number of packages, but they are all sponsored by the same person. This person might be doing a lot of work, and be knowledgeable about Debian without interacting actively with anyone else apart from his/her sponsor... 2) Someone who does not have a fixed sponsor, but sends mails to -mentors asking for uploads whenever they need one. This person's work won't be appreciated by all of his/her sponsors, because they'd only see one of those packages, and not all the work done... (In this case, it's even difficult to get an advocate at all) Hi Margarita, tracking contributions: when someone (like a non-debian package maintainer or a NM) asks for something to be sponsored, is there a mailing list or location (like on wiki.d.o/$NAME) that this is noted? Would such a location or mailing list be useful for AM or others to see what they did? Also if this was implemented would it be useful for non-debian package maintainers to have their work noted so that if they want to join the NM process in the future, they could then just point to the work they did for debian in one of these locations? As for translation/documentation contributions, is there a way to track non-debian, NM (or DD) translation/documentation work other than parsing changelogs? Sample entries: From: joe hacker [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: debian-contribution-list Subject: Sponsored upload of gimp From: joe hacker [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: debian-contribution-list Subject: Translation for apt-howto-es From: joe hacker [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: debian-contribution-list Subject: Documentation written for manpages-freebsd From: joe hacker [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: debian-contribution-list Subject: Bug report written for #33455 From: joe hacker [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: debian-contribution-list Subject: Bug report with patch written for #33455 From: joe hacker [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: debian-contribution-list Subject: Artwork for falconseye From: joe hacker [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: debian-contribution-list Subject: Sound for gaim From: joe hacker [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: debian-contribution-list Subject: website page for www.debian.org Cheers, Kev -- | .''`. == Debian GNU/Linux == | my web site: | | : :' : The Universal | debian.home.pipeline.com | | `. `' Operating System| go to counter.li.org and | | `-http://www.debian.org/ |be counted! #238656 | | my keysever: pgp.mit.edu | my NPO: cfsg.org | signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Setting up i18n.debian.org?
Internationalisation Collaboration Server. Jaldhar H. Vyas [5]asked if it would be possible to set up a central website for coordinating translation efforts within Debian. He suggested several tools which were working like Ubuntu's proprietary Rosetta tool. Margarita Manterola [6]added that such a website would encourage a lot of people to contribute to Debian who were unable to do so with the existing translation tools. 5. http://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2006/03/msg00280.html 6. http://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2006/03/msg00282.html (thanks DWN for pointing this: as I don't read -project, I missed this thread) Well, this topic is a recurrent topic on -i18n, Jaldhar. Actually, this is the goal I have for the i18n meeting in Extremadura (http://wiki.debian.org/WorkSessionExtremadura2006i18n): either do some initial work on setting up some early infrastructure or at the minimum work on the requisites for it. Discussions at Debconf, during, or after, the round table Javier Fernàndez-Sanguino and I will present/animatewill also help converging on the requirements for an i18n infrastructure. I suggest that further discussion continues on -i18n which is IMHO its natural placeor stays crossposted but, please, keep -i18n CC'ed... signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Reforming the NM process
Bernhard R. Link [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: [...] Plus sponsoring is a nice way to have experienced people look at what a applicant is doing. If done seriously sponsoring is almost as much work as packaging a package on your own, But only very few people take sponsoring seriously, despite some efforts to change this. Your whole point becomes moot as soon as you move away From the precondition that sponsors *really* check packages. That I find release-critical bugs in my applicants' packages (which happens quite often) shows how good sponsoring works... Marc -- BOFH #230: Lusers learning curve appears to be fractal pgpFK5hPfrRr1.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Reforming the NM process
On Tue, Apr 11, 2006 at 06:59:44PM +0200, Pierre Habouzit wrote: For 2.2, I'd recommend that NM's maintain a page about them on wiki.d.org (my current applicant did that, and I found that rather useful). In a glance you can see applicants that are not comited enough. Probably it's a good idea to maintain wiki.debian.org/YourName anyway, whether you're a DD, a DM, an NM or a prospective NM. But I guess it makes most sense for prospective NMs - document your contributions to Debian there (maybe with some small paragraph about your motivation) and Front Desk (and later your AM) will have it much easier to match an AM and/or check your contributions. Personally, I'd like to see this formalized in the NM process, but maybe some of the AMs (those who think this is a good idea) should just try it out and report back on how useful it is. I am not sure 6 months of sustained contributions is really necessary, I think several months or sustained contributions are alright, where both measures are up for interpretation depending on the type, quality and quantity of the contributions. Michael -- Michael Banck Debian Developer [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.advogato.org/person/mbanck/diary.html -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Reforming the NM process
On Tue, Apr 11, 2006 at 06:40:34PM +0200, Marc 'HE' Brockschmidt wrote: 2.1 Multiple advocates -- Ask for more than one advocate (at the moment, I'm thinking about two). This should get the number of people advocated with a Errr, I met him, he seemed nice down. At the same time, encourage prospective advocates no to advocate too fast. Also, two advocates are not a problem for someone who should apply in the NM queue - if there is only one project member who's willing to advocate you, something is foul anyway. We discussed this a bit on IRC, and feedback seemed positive, so I'll comment here as well. I don't think having multiple advocates solves anything; if the problem is that you have a large pool of people acting as poor advocates, then requiring them to get *two* bad advocates is only slightly more challenging than getting one. It would be better if we could have clear guidelines for advocates, to cover the gap between what AMs are expecting of incoming NMs and who advocates are actually advocating; and if necessary, to disqualify certain DDs from advocating if they consistently abuse the system by ignoring these guidelines. Cheers, -- Steve Langasek Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS Debian Developer to set it on, and I can move the world. [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.debian.org/ signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Congratulations
On Tue, Apr 11, 2006 at 01:57:48PM +, Thaddeus H. Black wrote: As in recent DPL elections, the personality of James Troup was a pivotal ~~~ ~~~ I believe you misspelled demonization and distracting... issue in this one. HTH, -- Steve Langasek Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS Debian Developer to set it on, and I can move the world. [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.debian.org/ signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: About expulsion requests
Scripsit Sven Luther [EMAIL PROTECTED] So far as I can tell, the decision to make the first message public or semi-public has been a decision taken by the people who chose to start it, not by the process, and changing the process isn't going to address that problem (unless, I suppose, there's some ban in the process for starting that way, but that gets rather tricky). Since Debian's mailing lists are Simple, any request for expulsion which doesn't pass through the DPL or whoever is in charge first before going public, is dismissed out of hand, That would mean that if somebody _has_ done something that merits expulsion (knowingly uploading packages with trojaned backdoors in them is the clearest example that comes to mind) can avoid being expelled simply by bribing someone to start campaigning loudly and publicly for his expulsion. -- Henning Makholm Jeg har tydeligt gjort opmærksom på, at man ved at følge den vej kun bliver gennemsnitligt ca. 48 år gammel, og at man sætter sin sociale situation ganske overstyr og, så vidt jeg kan overskue, dør i dybeste ulykkelighed og elendighed.
Re: Reforming the NM process
Dear Marc and fellow Debian friends, Thanks for this cogent and clear summary of the problem as you see it. It reminds me a bit of the problem of scientific peer-review; for-pay journals often ask people to donate their limitted time reviewing other people's work. Although the journal profits, the reviewer does not directly benefit from reviewing, usually. This has always struck me as backwards-incentives. In my opinion, the for-profit journals should compensate skilled and rare scientists for their time when reviewing papers. Everybody knows reviewing other people's papers for the first time is the most boring work. And nobody has enough time yet it's a bottleneck in the whole process. So why not pay for it? So long as the reviewer is respected enough to make a good judgment, it shouldn't be impossible to coordinate some direct compensation to ease the pain if the task is commonly-agreed to be painful. People pay a fee to take most certifying exams for example. I wonder if the same could be applied to Debian? (note I am not a NM/DD yet) I think Debian has really taken off as a new nexus for open source and would expect if it were possible to make a money contribution to speed up the NM queue many would be up for it. After all, many of us have been using Debian for years and we all depend heavily on bug-free and recent software. I think Debian has served as one of the great successes in open-source quality assurance process (along with the Linux and BSD kernels) but there is clearly a problem of too much boring work leading to bottlenecks repeatedly. What if we make an AM salary-pool (open for donations all the time) and pay out once a month say 10% of the total pool in proportion to the number of people checked? Then more donations mean bigger incentives for any of the qualified AM's to grab some cash. Maybe there can be a very small number (1-3) of AM-managers that ensure AM checking quality doesn't go downhill or become corrupted as a result and ensures proper credits are given that lead to proportional compensation for those willing to put in the extra hours for AM checking in a major way? We certainly wouldn't want to get a new crop of for-money-only AM's, but this doesn't mean (to me) that we shouldn't consider helping our very rare, necessary and current skillful AM's devote more time to the cause without so much personal sacrifice. We would all benefit from getting the rare good developers sooner into the project I think. I remember a similar system has been used quite successfully for a long time in the RSA factoring challenge [1] to encourage integer factoring research; I myself was one of many people who tried (and failed!) to get a piece of the pie even though it was a relatively small amount of money being offered each quarter. It was simply divided according to a point-based system that made new longer-number breakthroughs worth more. Even though I never got paid I thought it was a fun and effective way of pushing my interest in a possibly dry field. Here is one of the unexpected humor breakthroughs that RSA encouraged.[2] I wonder what kind of knock-on effects we could expect if Debian had a similar system going. Best regards, Rudi 1. http://www.rsasecurity.com/rsalabs/node.asp?id=2094 2. http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.c++/browse_frm/thread/a7cc5e74e12fca4d/6bedcbfa8c15b994?lnk=stq=factoring+rudirnum=1hl=en#6bedcbfa8c15b994
