On Mon, 11 Mar 2002, Mark Johnson wrote: > Hairy developer status is not required. Only membership. ... > Your point is valid if the only "members" of the organization known as > the Debian Project are those with the official title of > "developer". If this is indeed the case, then of course I withdraw my > offer, as I am only a humble maintainer and my $250 donation to > Debian's membership then wouldn't even get me an OASIS > membership. (Hey, I'm not that generous.) That can't be how it > works. If it is, it's absurd:) > > Maintainers are members, right?
'Scuse my abysmal ignorance showing here -- but please could someone at this point give an authoritative definition of what constitutes a: - Debian developer - Debian maintainer - member of Debian project (SPI member?) I'm not being awkward or anything (I'm just getting more confused by the minute :~); just seeking clarification for my own personal enlightenment. [This is because from a personal point of view, I simply can't summon up the intellectual curiosity or energy to get all fired up about packaging software (hell, 8,500+ packages is way more than I need, anyhow -- why contribute more?; and the only stuff I'd be remotely interested in packaging is all already very well taken care of, thankyou); -- BUT -- given the opportunity, I might be able to get quite excited at the prospect of producing / 'packaging' _documentation_ for Debian for some of those packages. (Or anything else, for that matter.) Which being a 'maintainer' or 'member' might enable me to do? In fact, I already 'maintain' a HOWTO for the LDP (does this make me a maintainer? if so, who for?); and mess around with ways and means of trying to improve the Linux documentation process (a couple of wikiwebs)-- and am a rabid Debian advocate in both my personal and professional activities (Linux systems support and training). But somehow I don't seem to be able to contribute anything acceptable to the Debian process, without first having to go through a lot of irrelevant stuff I should have to pretend to learn simply in order to get developer status (as a packager); but which I'm frankly not interested in, and don't need (as a documentalist). So, my question is -- in what way does becoming a maintainer differ from going through the developer process? And why does developer status seem to be considered to be akin to that of fighter-pilot; whilst that of maintainer is considered to be somewhere down at oik level? Do hairy program packagers have to mark up their program's documentation in DocBook SGML? XML? So many questions ... ] All answers welcome. Slightly Confused, of Glastonbury -- Martin Wheeler <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> gpg:1024D/01269BEB the.earth.li -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
