I'm interested in this question for several reasons. Basically, I'd like to be a new maintainer, but the process is 1) not clear and 2) officially closed. So I'm sitting here, waiting, wondering what possible motivations there could be for ever having it officially closed, and bemusedly wondering what will happen to Debian if the current situation persists for too long.
If there are lots of maintainers not properly handling their bug reports, then clearly Debian needs some new maintainers. There is a very substantial list of packages that are either orphaned or whose maintainers have requested that someone else take up the slack. There is a very large list of release-critical bugs for potato, and more competent people would be useful for bugsquash weekends. The process of adding a new maintainer takes a certain amount of effort, and I certainly understand the possibility of a backlog--the new maintainer registrar certainly doesn't need to be expected to add people instantaneously. But my understanding is that the addition of new maintainers is not merely slow, but has been officially stopped. Why? What IS the motivation? Here I am, a highly competent person, a happy and satisfied Debian user, and someone who thinks it's my duty to contribute back to Debian with some of my labor and talent. Thomas
