Re: Self-assessment of the quality of the maintenance work

[Filippo Giunchedi]

Hi,

On Sat, Dec 20, 2008 at 06:19:26PM +0100, Raphael Hertzog wrote:
> The basic idea is quite simple, we want to ensure that each package is
> maintained as well as possible and for this we need to ensure that
> it has one or more active maintainer(s). Hence every X months, each
> maintainer receives a mail with a link to a web form where he'll have a
> list of all the packages that he maintains/co-maintains and for each
> package he has to answer several questions that explain his relationship
> with the package (the answer are preseeded with the values he selected
> the previous time so that he can quickly skim over it if nothing has
> changed):
> - what kind of maintainer he is
>   - active (responding quickly, forwarding bugs, …)
>   - passive (responds only to major problems)
>   - backup (not doing anything unless solicited)
> - if the package needs an active maintainer or not (most perl modules are
>   well maintained with a single "passive" maintainer)
> - if the package needs help from another volunteer

I like the general idea, here are a few points/questions:

Have a procedure to not receive the mail in the future (perhaps making it
possible to (manually, via email?) re-enable at some later time)

> We could integrate various heuristics/data in the process to help the
> maintainer recognize that he's (not) keeping up and that he needs help
> or maybe that he's no more "active" but only "passive".
> 
> If the maintainer doesn't respond, he automatically enters the MIA
> process and the package is quickly marked as needing help/attention
> from someone else.

How long is the time span after the maintainer enters MIA? Perhaps after X
unanswered mails?

Also, it would help to clarify that "enters the MIA process" is not the same as
"the maintainer is MIA" which might be confusing. 

filippo
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Re: Self-assessment of the quality of the maintenance work

[Enrico Zini]

On Sat, Dec 20, 2008 at 07:32:01PM +0100, Raphael Hertzog wrote:

> It could also be used to create a new "maintenance" facet in debtags.
> maint::orphaned, maint::active, maint::passive, maint::help-needed,
> maint::need-active-maint

I've been thinking about such a maintenance facet for quite a while, and
indeed it's one of the first thing that came to my mind when you posted
about the self-assessment.

I have been pondering about some self-assessment as well, to feed such a
facet.  My idea was mainly to allow maintainers to write in
debian/control whether they consider the package to be a "fringe"
package, or "dead-upstream".  "active"/"passive" maintenance is an
interesting concept that could be documented in the same place as well.

"help-needed" and "need-active-maint" probably wouldn't fit there, as it
isn't worth to make a new upload just to document that; also, they're
likely to be attributes on which the view of users or other developers
is probably more accurate than that of the maintainer.

I quite liked the idea of allowing to set such attributes in the control
file because, rather than looking like someone putting their nose on how
one maintains packages, they are a handy way to document the
maintainer's intentions with the package, providing a service to the
maintainer: for example, if I mark a package dead-upstream, then people
posting wishlist bugs will hopefully take that into account (and
reportbug may remind them about it).  People adopting a "fringe" package
for heavy production will have been warned and hopefully will do some
extra testing, and so on.

How about something like this?  It has the advantage of being fully
voluntary, of being a possible value added for the developer, and of not
feeling like you're busy doing your best and then someone shows up and
instead of offering help asks you to stop and spend time assessing
yourself.


Ciao,

Enrico

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Re: Self-assessment of the quality of the maintenance work

[Russ Allbery]

Raphael Hertzog  writes:

> The basic idea is quite simple, we want to ensure that each package is
> maintained as well as possible and for this we need to ensure that
> it has one or more active maintainer(s). Hence every X months, each
> maintainer receives a mail with a link to a web form where he'll have a
> list of all the packages that he maintains/co-maintains and for each
> package he has to answer several questions that explain his relationship
> with the package (the answer are preseeded with the values he selected
> the previous time so that he can quickly skim over it if nothing has
> changed):

That's going to be a lot of fairly mindless paperwork for someone who's
the member of a large, active team with a lot of packages.  For example, I
feel for Gregor Herrmann (253 packages) or Gunnar Wolf (187 packages)
having to fill this out for every package they uploaded for pkg-perl.

-- 
Russ Allbery (r...@debian.org)   


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Re: Self-assessment of the quality of the maintenance work

[Florian Weimer]

* Raphael Hertzog:

> - what kind of maintainer he is
>   - active (responding quickly, forwarding bugs, …)
>   - passive (responds only to major problems)
>   - backup (not doing anything unless solicited)
> - if the package needs an active maintainer or not (most perl modules are
>   well maintained with a single "passive" maintainer)
> - if the package needs help from another volunteer

I'd rather see ways to commit to commit to certain packages and kinds
of maintenance.  For instance, "I will provide security support for
etch and lenny for exim4".

This would be some form of self-assessment, and we could
cross-correlate open bug reports with the self-assessment to check if
it is realistic.


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Re: Self-assessment of the quality of the maintenance work

[Raphael Hertzog]

On Sat, 20 Dec 2008, Luk Claes wrote:
> I don't think sending active maintainers questionaires is very helpful.

I don't think the active/not active criteria is so easy to find out. I can
be active on dpkg while being not active on my others packages. At some
point I must recognize that I've lost interest in the other packages and
retire from the co-maintainers and/or update my status.

But I certainly agree that we should strive to make this as painless as
possible in general and we can certainly find ways to attract the
attention of each maintainer only when we have hints that something is
going wrong.

> Though I'm not a priori against such a self-assessment, I think it
> should at least only be sent to people when needed (not in case of VAC,
> not when clearly active on all packages, not when all packages are
> orphaned ...).

Agreed, the purpose of the DEP would be to spell out all the cases and precise
how the thing should behave in every situation.

Cheers,
-- 
Raphaël Hertzog

Le best-seller français mis à jour pour Debian Etch :
http://www.ouaza.com/livre/admin-debian/


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Re: Self-assessment of the quality of the maintenance work

[Sune Vuorela]

On 2008-12-20, Raphael Hertzog  wrote:
> Thanks for your constructive comments??? and the nice vocabulary. 

Then I'm glad I didn't send my first draft with bad vocubulary.

Would a reply like:

"Thank you for your idea about improving quality of packages in debian,
but I don't think there is anything remotely good about this idea" be
better?

Then please read is at such.

/Sune


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Re: Self-assessment of the quality of the maintenance work

[Raphael Hertzog]

Responding to myself to share other details related to this idea
that I didn't want to include in the initial mail.

On Sat, 20 Dec 2008, Raphael Hertzog wrote:
> The basic idea is quite simple, we want to ensure that each package is
> maintained as well as possible and for this we need to ensure that
> it has one or more active maintainer(s). Hence every X months, each
> maintainer receives a mail with a link to a web form where he'll have a
> list of all the packages that he maintains/co-maintains and for each
> package he has to answer several questions that explain his relationship
> with the package (the answer are preseeded with the values he selected
> the previous time so that he can quickly skim over it if nothing has
> changed):

One of the side-effects is that we would encourage maintainers to remove
themselves from the Uploaders field if they are no more maintaining the
package.

> - what kind of maintainer he is
>   - active (responding quickly, forwarding bugs, …)
>   - passive (responds only to major problems)
>   - backup (not doing anything unless solicited)
> - if the package needs an active maintainer or not (most perl modules are
>   well maintained with a single "passive" maintainer)
> - if the package needs help from another volunteer

If you find the idea interesting, I'd appreciate your input on
the different categorization of maintenance type that we should propose
and what are the main characteristics of each category.

I have been rather superficial in the description above but it matches at
least part of my view on maintenance work: there are packages that I care
a lot about and where I will do my best and there are packages that I
packaged only because they are dependencies of other stuff that I needed
and where I'm not following upstream developement at all. I tend to do the
minimum for those (handle only RC-bugs in a timely fashion, package
new upstream versions often several months after its publication, …) and I
would be glad to let someone more involved take over those packages.   

> The collation of all those data will give us a better view on the
> maintenance status of each package and it could be displayed on the PTS.

It could also be used to create a new "maintenance" facet in debtags.

maint::orphaned, maint::active, maint::passive, maint::help-needed,
maint::need-active-maint

Cheers,
-- 
Raphaël Hertzog

Le best-seller français mis à jour pour Debian Etch :
http://www.ouaza.com/livre/admin-debian/


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Re: Self-assessment of the quality of the maintenance work

[Luk Claes]

Raphael Hertzog wrote:
> On Sat, 20 Dec 2008, Sune Vuorela wrote:
>> On 2008-12-20, Raphael Hertzog  wrote:
>>> maintainer receives a mail with a link to a web form where he'll have a
>>> list of all the packages that he maintains/co-maintains and for each
>>> package he has to answer several questions that explain his relationship
>>> with the package (the answer are preseeded with the values he selected
>>> the previous time so that he can quickly skim over it if nothing has
>>> changed):
>>> - what kind of maintainer he is
>>>   - active (responding quickly, forwarding bugs, ???)
>>>   - passive (responds only to major problems)
>>>   - backup (not doing anything unless solicited)
>>> - if the package needs an active maintainer or not (most perl modules are
>>>   well maintained with a single "passive" maintainer)
>>> - if the package needs help from another volunteer
>>>
>>> We could integrate various heuristics/data in the process to help the
>>> maintainer recognize that he's (not) keeping up and that he needs help
>>> or maybe that he's no more "active" but only "passive".
>>>
>>> If the maintainer doesn't respond, he automatically enters the MIA
>>> process and the package is quickly marked as needing help/attention
>>> from someone else.
>> I'd rather spend my time on fixing my packages than on filling web forms
>> with bureaucratic bullshit.
> 
> Thanks for your constructive comments… and the nice vocabulary. 
> 
> It might take some time the first time that you submit but it's good to
> step back a few seconds to think about the maintenance status of the
> packages that you maintain (do I need help? do I maintain it actively or
> would I let the package go if someone more involved in the upstream
> project showed up?). Later on the bureaucratic work takes a couple
> of seconds, not much more than the time you spent to write you nice reply.

I don't think sending active maintainers questionaires is very helpful.
Though I'm not a priori against such a self-assessment, I think it
should at least only be sent to people when needed (not in case of VAC,
not when clearly active on all packages, not when all packages are
orphaned ...).

Cheers

Luk


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Re: Self-assessment of the quality of the maintenance work

[Raphael Hertzog]

On Sat, 20 Dec 2008, Sune Vuorela wrote:
> On 2008-12-20, Raphael Hertzog  wrote:
> > maintainer receives a mail with a link to a web form where he'll have a
> > list of all the packages that he maintains/co-maintains and for each
> > package he has to answer several questions that explain his relationship
> > with the package (the answer are preseeded with the values he selected
> > the previous time so that he can quickly skim over it if nothing has
> > changed):
> > - what kind of maintainer he is
> >   - active (responding quickly, forwarding bugs, ???)
> >   - passive (responds only to major problems)
> >   - backup (not doing anything unless solicited)
> > - if the package needs an active maintainer or not (most perl modules are
> >   well maintained with a single "passive" maintainer)
> > - if the package needs help from another volunteer
> >
> > We could integrate various heuristics/data in the process to help the
> > maintainer recognize that he's (not) keeping up and that he needs help
> > or maybe that he's no more "active" but only "passive".
> >
> > If the maintainer doesn't respond, he automatically enters the MIA
> > process and the package is quickly marked as needing help/attention
> > from someone else.
> 
> I'd rather spend my time on fixing my packages than on filling web forms
> with bureaucratic bullshit.

Thanks for your constructive comments… and the nice vocabulary. 

It might take some time the first time that you submit but it's good to
step back a few seconds to think about the maintenance status of the
packages that you maintain (do I need help? do I maintain it actively or
would I let the package go if someone more involved in the upstream
project showed up?). Later on the bureaucratic work takes a couple
of seconds, not much more than the time you spent to write you nice reply.

Cheers,
-- 
Raphaël Hertzog

Le best-seller français mis à jour pour Debian Etch :
http://www.ouaza.com/livre/admin-debian/


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Re: Self-assessment of the quality of the maintenance work

[Sune Vuorela]

On 2008-12-20, Raphael Hertzog  wrote:
> maintainer receives a mail with a link to a web form where he'll have a
> list of all the packages that he maintains/co-maintains and for each
> package he has to answer several questions that explain his relationship
> with the package (the answer are preseeded with the values he selected
> the previous time so that he can quickly skim over it if nothing has
> changed):
> - what kind of maintainer he is
>   - active (responding quickly, forwarding bugs, ???)
>   - passive (responds only to major problems)
>   - backup (not doing anything unless solicited)
> - if the package needs an active maintainer or not (most perl modules are
>   well maintained with a single "passive" maintainer)
> - if the package needs help from another volunteer
>
> We could integrate various heuristics/data in the process to help the
> maintainer recognize that he's (not) keeping up and that he needs help
> or maybe that he's no more "active" but only "passive".
>
> If the maintainer doesn't respond, he automatically enters the MIA
> process and the package is quickly marked as needing help/attention
> from someone else.

I'd rather spend my time on fixing my packages than on filling web forms
with bureaucratic bullshit.

/Sune

>
> The collation of all those data will give us a better view on the
> maintenance status of each package and it could be displayed on the PTS.
> We could also use those info to direct new contributors to help in
> existing packages instead of packaging new stuff.
>
> What do you think of the idea ?
>
> I would like to formalize the idea a bit more and we could use the DEP
> process for this. I would be willing to work on the implementation once
> we agree on the process.
>
> Cheers,
> -- 
> Raphaël Hertzog
>
> Le best-seller français mis à jour pour Debian Etch :
> http://www.ouaza.com/livre/admin-debian/
>
>


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Self-assessment of the quality of the maintenance work

[Raphael Hertzog]

Hello,

I would like to propose something new that would partially supersede the
work done by the MIA team and that would also generate new information
somehow related to the topic of WNPP.

The basic idea is quite simple, we want to ensure that each package is
maintained as well as possible and for this we need to ensure that
it has one or more active maintainer(s). Hence every X months, each
maintainer receives a mail with a link to a web form where he'll have a
list of all the packages that he maintains/co-maintains and for each
package he has to answer several questions that explain his relationship
with the package (the answer are preseeded with the values he selected
the previous time so that he can quickly skim over it if nothing has
changed):
- what kind of maintainer he is
  - active (responding quickly, forwarding bugs, …)
  - passive (responds only to major problems)
  - backup (not doing anything unless solicited)
- if the package needs an active maintainer or not (most perl modules are
  well maintained with a single "passive" maintainer)
- if the package needs help from another volunteer

We could integrate various heuristics/data in the process to help the
maintainer recognize that he's (not) keeping up and that he needs help
or maybe that he's no more "active" but only "passive".

If the maintainer doesn't respond, he automatically enters the MIA
process and the package is quickly marked as needing help/attention
from someone else.

The collation of all those data will give us a better view on the
maintenance status of each package and it could be displayed on the PTS.
We could also use those info to direct new contributors to help in
existing packages instead of packaging new stuff.

What do you think of the idea ?

I would like to formalize the idea a bit more and we could use the DEP
process for this. I would be willing to work on the implementation once
we agree on the process.

Cheers,
-- 
Raphaël Hertzog

Le best-seller français mis à jour pour Debian Etch :
http://www.ouaza.com/livre/admin-debian/


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