On Sun, 2008-02-03 at 20:34 -0500, David Nusinow wrote: > Further, I would argue that you are absolutely flat out wrong when you say > that being a DM means you just need to maintain your packages well.
Maybe it does right now. But if so I think that is wrong, for a number of reasons. Firstly, requiring someone to "a good maintainer" is a fairly broad brush. It means your packages follow Debian policy, it means you respond quickly and effectively to bug reports, it usually requires technical skills, and maintaining something generally means you have already social skills to persuade whoever let you maintain the package. In other words, having a nice set of well maintained packages implies the many of the things that you seem to say aren't related to "just maintaining your packages well", so here I disagree with you. Secondly, and more importantly, it isn't hard to check if someone's packages are maintained well, provided the criteria is kept simple. Debian runs lots of _automated_ checks along these lines now. This makes it really easy to verify if someone is fit to become a DM. This has already been demonstrated when an applicant didn't handle his gpg keys correctly. He was rejected with what I thought was relatively little discussion because in the end it is a fairly straight forward technical point, as opposed to a ideological one. Thirdly, becoming a DM is a light weight process compared to the marathon that is necessary to become a DD. It is obvious one of the reasons for this is _because_ the checks are currently light weight. Fourthly, Debian isn't giving much away here. You are given the right to upload an existing packages, provided your sponsor thinks its a good thing, and that right can be withdrawn easily. So why the need for checks other than "do the job well"? These things all tie in together to give a whole that is bigger than the sum of the parts. Consider the marathon that is the process to become a DD. I think one of the reasons it is a marathon is this is related to the fact as once you are granted DD status you are effectively granted it for life. Yes, there are ways to get rid of a DD, but in reality it is almost never done as the criteria to becoming a DD is based on all sorts of touchy feelly things like "following the spirit of the social contract" and a persons "contributions". How do you unambiguously measure whether a person is still acting in the spirit of Debian's social contract, and whose definition of spirit do you use anyway? And what is a relevant contribution and how do you measure the many ways a person can make one? In practise its very hard to objectively measure these things so it is equally hard to eject someone for not conforming to them. The end result is the up-front checks must be fierce to compensate. You can't fix mistakes, so you try and make as few of them as possible. Hence the DD marathon. In contrast, a Debian Maintainer status is renewed each year. If someone's work starts causing problems for the archive - things that cause a noticeable drop in quality like not fixing rc bugs, or straining the infrastructure then the privilege can be easily withdrawn. Provided you leave airy fairy things such "as being strong promoter of Debian's principles" out of the criteria for being a Debian Maintainer, measuring these things is relatively uncontentious, and so acting on them also becomes less contentious. So, I am not saying upholding and believing in Debian's principles isn't important. It is very important. And people who have demonstrated they do understand and follow the Debian way should be acknowledged and rewarded. It is just that demonstrating those things necessarily takes a long time. In comparison it does not take a good programmer that long to lean how to competently package something for Debian. Well maintained packages are Debian's lifeblood - its reason for existence. We need all the good packagers we can get - providing we can be sure they are doing a good job. The DM process is a way of getting these packagers into the project quickly, and weeding out the ones don't work out. In order for this to work you need simple criteria, and I think "do your packaging job well" is about is simple as you can make it. We will have enough long winded arguments about how to measure that. Don't complicate it. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
