Re: Bits from the ftpmaster team
On Fri, Mar 18, 2005 at 05:51:40AM +, James Troup wrote: Hi, The ftpmaster team would like to announce some new additions, namely Jeroen van Wolffelaar [EMAIL PROTECTED] [0] and Joerg Jaspert [EMAIL PROTECTED] In addition, we're taking the opportunity to codify the structure of the team a little more, to make it a little clearer whom to ask about what[1]. The responsibilities are, roughly, divided like so: FTP Master: (overall care of the archive) James Troup Ryan Murray Anthony Towns FTP Assistants: Randall Donald (NEW processing) Daniel Silverstone (NEW processing) Michael Beattie (Override processing) Joerg Jaspert (NEW processing) Jeroen van Wolffelaar (Removals) We hope this has made your day more pleasant, and your nights less filled with the keening wails of the soulless undead. A, man, how am I going to get to sleep now? Seriously, though - this is most excellent news, and given the improvements a similar change to DAM processing brought, I have significant hope that the various things I've griped about in the past WRT ftpmaster may be resolved by this, or at the very least closer to that state. Thank you for the announcement. -- Joel Aelwyn [EMAIL PROTECTED] ,''`. : :' : `. `' `- signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Bits from the ftpmasters
On Sun, Feb 20, 2005 at 09:06:36PM +0100, Goswin von Brederlow wrote: Joel Aelwyn [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Now, if the reason is because everyone involved in ftp-master has more crucial tasks to do with getting Sarge out the door, that would be one thing; the answer would be Wait if we're expecting that to last a couple of weeks at most, or train an additional person if we expect it to persist (yes, I *know* training someone costs, but it also pays off fairly rapidly, thus the patience-if-it's-short). The NEW queue hasn't been the most expedient for some time now which would indicate this is a long term problem. Unless the reason for the delay is too many people fighting over the decision then more manpower can't hurt, right. With the caveat that it needs to be manpower usefully applied, I would agree. What useful applications are available is one of the questions. Let me repeat two ideas I mentioned before: I also missed these, previously. Which is a pity. They both seem like they could be quite useful, if the problem is the NEW queue is a pain in the arse to deal with and not very rewarding. - uploads to NEW need an advocate in addition to the normal signature The advocates job would be to test the package, check for packaging mistakes, gross bugs, build failures, license, bad name choice when splitting a package. That sort of thing. This would be helpfull in filtering out more bad uploads to NEW. Is that a frequent thing? How much time is wasted on trivial rejections currently? Hmmm. Seems like it could work, but might still have the issue that finding two maintainers who think something is good is not vastly more difficult than finding one; also, many packages are already co-maintained, would you allow co-maints to both sign it? I believe it *is* possible to get multiple signatures with GnuPG (the same way you can encrypt something to multiple keys), but I'd have to go dig through the docs to figure out how to do it. - a NEW team The new team would be an appointed group (not just random DD as for the advocate) of DDs that do all the checking and testing of NEW packages and recommend to ftp-master to accept a package in the end. This would mean the ftp-master would loose some of their duties and only be the implementing tool (with a veto right?). Having a NM team has worked great to NM. Maybe that success could be repeated. This seems like it might be a little easier. Among other things, processing the NEW queue has very different requirements, in many ways, from the rest of the ftpmaster jobs described in the document. 1) Requires a high degree of interaction with other DDs, including things that can frequently go sour, like rejection notices. Often requires patience and tact beyond what may be reasonable to expect of all DDs, or even all ftpmasters. 2) Requires investingating new packages for things like licensing (thus, needing to follow debian-legal to some degree), requires going over the basics of the package structuring (at least, this seems to often be done; I've had first-pass uploads rejected for being split into too many small pieces, even if we don't expect them to catch bugs), etc. Often tedious. 3) Doesn't (as far as I can see offhand) require access to sensitive accounts, key signatures, or software. Thus, someone who processes NEW as a generate recommendations for ftpmaster can do the job without needing much, if any, in the way of privileged access (possibly some issues with crypto, but those should be easily resolveable). I suspect that if this was a good answer, it would require some startup effort (pick one or two folks to learn the basics, get them up to speed, maybe sort out semi-standard forms and checklists of things which need to be answered, and possibly work out some sort of coordination system, though that might be as simply as yell down the hall emails), after which the NEW processors could do most of the training for additional NEW processors. Certainly either of them seems like a worthwhile thing to try, if the problem is need more manpower; the main question is whether an advocate system is really enough to cut down on the difficulty of the task (I have my doubts, but it might cut down on the number of bad/hard-to-check things getting into the queue in the first place... or might not), or whether having more non-privileged manpower to process the queue down to a simpler Looks good, Looks questionable, here's why or Needs to be rejected, here's why (or give them the power to flat-reject something to them, even) is more useful. Not that I expect, given how this and past conversations have gone, that they'd particularly want to deal with me, but if a NEW processing group is considered worthwhile, consider me volunteered to put in the time. Maybe the work is suitable revenge for having to read or delete so many of my emails. -- Joel Aelwyn [EMAIL PROTECTED
Re: Take APT 0.6 discussion public!
On Thu, Feb 17, 2005 at 02:03:04AM +1000, Anthony Towns wrote: martin f krafft wrote: If you are not busy with sarge, tell us what you are doing for Debian that makes you have no time for the above tasks! My apologies, Sir, it appears I must have mislaid my employment contract; I wonder if I might perchance obtain a new copy? It also seems that my salary has been misplaced, I wonder if you would be so kind as to inform the HR department and request they look into the matter? Or, wait, perhaps you aren't my boss, and you've got absolutely no business demanding that I account for my time? The only business anyone has desiring an accounting of your time is when it appears to be relevant to the question of whether any of that time is being spent on the duties of a volunteer position you hold. You may, of course, choose not to answer, but please don't be suprised if people assume that means no time, or possibly no willingness to fufill the expected duties, and decide to take issue with letting you continue in the position in question. Nobody can demand a volunteer do anything - but likewise, nobody can demand they be given, or keep, a position within the project (though the procedure for recalling various positions varies depending on whether they are delegates or elected positions, of course). I, personally, have asked several times in the past for some indication of just what is going on under the veil of the ftpmasters role, and I have never received a satisfactory answer. The current execution of the duties of that role is, in my opinion, substandard at best, and I see only three ways to resolve that: 1) Find out, from someone with the answers (which as far as I can tell means one or more members of the ftpmaster team), what is causing the problems, and then try to find a useful and meaningful resolution of them. Maybe that's train new helpers, maybe that's give everyone a rubber duckie, but without knowing what the problem is, it is rather difficult to make any useful suggestion. Asserting, or implying, that there is no problem is rather disingenous. 2) Get rid of any and all people who are obstructing #1, and let someone new have a shot at it. Maybe they'll fix the problems, or maybe they'll expose enough about it to let others figure out a good solution. Since this will involve unhappy feelings on many parts, as well as a great deal of wasted time and effort (equivalent to training up at least 1-2 new ftpmasters, and then some, for learning from scratch), it is in no fashion to be preferred over option 1. But if option 1 is not available, this one still is. 3) Sit on our thumbs and pray something changes. Given both history, and my lack of belief in an omnibenevolent deity, this one doesn't seem likely to do much good. So, just to be exceptionally clear, I will ask again, intending no insult and no mockery: What is going on within the ftpmaster team to cause the observed symptoms, and if you have any thoughts on what would be helpful in terms of alleviating those problems, would you please share them? If this is already documented somewhere, and I have missed it, a pointer to the discussion or documentation would suffice, of course. I'm happy to RTFM, if there is a TFM to R. -- Joel Aelwyn [EMAIL PROTECTED] ,''`. : :' : `. `' `- signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Debian role bashing
On Thu, Feb 17, 2005 at 11:53:47AM +1000, Anthony Towns wrote: martin f krafft wrote: Maybe we should tabulate most commonly bashed roles and see if there is a correlation with inavailability of information? What would be the point? That would tell us nothing about causation, which is the question at issue. The assertion that causation and correlation are never tied is false. Correlation is not causative to causation, but it is, in many cases, highly correlated with it. Or, in more homily terms: If there's smoke, there may not be fire, but you'd still be well advised to grab a fire extinguisher and check it out just in case. However, from your tone of other replies on this thread, it has become clear to me that you have no intent of discussing the actual issues in any type of public forum, feeling them to be too hostile, and thus I can only assume that the only responses then possible for the developers at large are to either pray, or work toward convincing the DPL (current, or to be elected) that the delegates in this role are not, in fact, executing their duties with due diligence, and should be replaced. Which is a pity, but somehow, a great many other people seem to find the forums available sufficiently inhostile to post discussions and meaningful status updates. If the answer is that our ftpmasters need thicker skins to deal with Debian lists, I agree that may say something poor about our mailing lists, but it also says we should be asking for delegates that can handle the job. I can assume anything from outright obstructionism (which I do not think is a warranted accusation for anyone involved) to simply having no time among other Debian duties (I can hope) to the entire team apart from you having been hit by a bus (again, seems unlikely), but frankly, the answer really doesn't matter. What matters are the following statements. If you have factual counters to them, I'll be happy to discuss them, but I doubt there are any: 1) The ftpmasters are not keeping up with the NEW queue in anything like the documented as roughly to be expected fashion (of approximately 1 time per week). Anyone wishing to dispute this statement should start with an explanation of the NEW queue as currently visible; I know, for example, that I have at least two packages in it that are standard licenses, with standard builds, of well-known and popular software, which should take a reviewer about as little time as any package can (I won't say 'trivial time', I have no way to know), and they've been in there for - well, anyone who cares can go look it up. Quite a bit more than a week, or even two. 2) There has been no substantiative explanation forthcoming from the ftpmasters, either formally or informally, in any of the normal channels which I am aware of (debian-devel-announce for formal, various debian-* mailing lists and my personal mailbox being the primary informal ones I monitor). If I've missed one, even on debian-private, please provide me with a Message-ID and info on where to find it (IE, d-d-a archives) or URL. 3) Related to #2, there have been no requests for specific assistance from the ftpmasters regarding the queue (at least, not that I can parse as being one; again, if I missed it, please provide message identifiers). If any of these facts are incorrect, please inform me (in private, if you don't want to do so in public, though I may ask permission to repost it, with attribution optionally stripped, to correct this post). In the absence of that, I really don't know what to make of these facts except a persistant and consistant pattern of a lack of communication between the ftpmasters and the project as a whole on what many people appear to consider significant problems. I'm not asking anyone to be perfect (I know I haven't been, and I've taken my lumps for it on the mailing lists when something I'm involved with is a problem). But from the perspective of several people, *this is a problem*, and the current answer of the ftpmaster team (to wit, nil) on the topic (as opposed to on the meta-topic of This is insulting) leave few other options. DDs: if you are dissatisfied with this situation, speak to your DPL candidates. Express your concerns. Let them put it in their platforms. Vote for whomever seems the best fit for the direction you want to see the project go. Maybe one or more of the above 'facts' is in error, and maybe the situation isn't as pathological as it might appear, in which case this should cease being an issue. If not, well, as delegates, the ftpmasters are answerable to the DPL, and as our elected leader, the DPL answers to us. Vote based on what you care about. (Disclaimer: I'm not campaigning for any DPL candidate; I haven't even looked to see if any platforms are up that might address this at all. Campaigning for thoughtful, considered DPL voting should never be out of style, however...) -- Joel Aelwyn [EMAIL PROTECTED
Re: New Front Desk members
On Mon, Jan 31, 2005 at 07:20:31PM +, MJ Ray wrote: [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: By the same token, it should also have a second person plural, which it lacks [...] much like a lot of the country uses y'all, or you all for those who don't want to sound Southern, for a second person plural [...] *The* country? I've not noticed southern England using y'all, but I'm not from there. ;-) I think Northampton dialect uses a second person plural which sounds like orlvyeh (might be all of you?) for cases when you is ambiguous. Like most English dialects, there's little written work and dictionaries are hard to get. I think developments often try to *reduce* complexity and ambiguity, but abuse of they increases ambiguity. Touche (I *know* the e is accented, but I don't want to fight with my not-very-good-at-UTF-8 input device to manage it). I stand duly chastized for not paying enough attention to my choice of words there. Mostly I find the concept of 'thou shall not sully the ancient tongue', English-spoken-as-my-English-teacher-spoke-it rules silly. The roots of the use of singular they can be traced back a *long* ways if you want to get into the linguistics behind it, certainly a lot farther than what the average person today would be able to recognize as English (or should that be Anglish? How much of it is really Saxon? And so on...). Oddly, this has some interesting ties to why its is a possessive pronoun and it's is a contraction. :) -- Joel Aelwyn [EMAIL PROTECTED] ,''`. : :' : `. `' `- signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: New Front Desk members
On Mon, Jan 31, 2005 at 10:14:12AM -0500, Daniel Burrows wrote: On Monday 31 January 2005 10:06 am, Daniel Burrows wrote: they is commonly used colloquially (at least around here) as a gender-neutral substitute for he or she. And just to be ultra-clear, I don't mean used by PC people, but rather used in informal speech as the preferred alternative when you don't know the gender of the person to whom you are referring -- much to the dismay of our high school English teachers, who tried their best to get us to use one of the formally correct alternatives. My high school English teachers (and the spouse who is an English major) all came to the same conclusion: *) It would be *best* if English adopted an explicit third-person gender-neutral pronoun (as opposed to a ungendered one, which is what 'it' means, and which people find quite offensive because it implies no gender, rather than an unknown one). By the same token, it should also have a second person plural, which it lacks... neither of these appear to have any formal choices that are in fact recognized by anyone who *uses* the language. *) English common usage (rather than formal usage) is rapidly and widely adopting singular they (much like a lot of the country uses y'all, or you all for those who don't want to sound Southern, for a second person plural). This may be offensive to purists, but frankly, purists shouldn't be speaking English in the first place. It's a terrible language for purity. :) The second point above means, very simply, that it is an evolving language, and the people using the language have found a way to answer their need for having a way to refer to a third party of an unknown or unspecified gender. And this isn't just PC-speak; it can be found far more widely than it used to be, and much more casually. Certainly, the rules for writing business memos at my employer strongly imply (though they don't come out and say it) that using he is considered to be reinforcing a discrimination of language in connotation, *whatever* the denotation may be, and is to be avoided - whether by using a specific noun (the customer, the employee), singular they (if you can't read the sentance out loud with a straight face, this is a bad choice), or restructuring the sentance to not need a pronoun in that spot. The first of those tends to get clumsy quickly; the latter is one of the only real, workable solutions that doens't piss off one camp or the other, because it avoids the situation entirely. -- Joel Aelwyn [EMAIL PROTECTED] ,''`. : :' : `. `' `- signature.asc Description: Digital signature
