Hi There,
this whole discussion actually freaked me out a bit. I don't know how
you feel about it, but I think we (as the MOTU team) need to come back
to our main focus:
Get Universe/Multiverse as shiny as possible !
Ok, here it goes...
Priority 1a:
I think our main focus should still be to fix
Universe/Multiverse packages for the actual development
release. That means, merging, syncing, fixing packages which we
are importing from Debian or from older times from apt-get.org.
This will eat most of our time during a release.
Priority 1b:
Recruite New Blood !
Yes, we are lacking of Menpower. We need more active people,
who are working on Prio 1a !
This we can only achieve, with more PR. Furthermore, we need
smart people and people who will stay focused, and even when
"older" MOTUs are showing some "Burn Out" symptoms, we need to
help them to come over this situation.
("older" doesn't mean here: Age, it means Time being involved
in the Ubuntu MOTU Project)
Priority 2:
Fixing universe/multiverse even for older releases.
This includes StableReleaseUpdates, Backports and as well
Security Fixes.
Backports are quiet easy to achieve, but SRUs and
Security Fixes are serious and difficult. We should try to find
people, who are trustable and sensible for those areas. Here,
I think we should recruit this group of people from the already
existent MOTU Crew.
Priority 3:
New Packages !
Ah yes, our actual problem. I do think it's more wise to point
people to the mentor/sponsor project of Debian. But
nevertheless, we are responsible to push interesting Software
into Ubuntu, even before they hit Debian.
But this should be, until we are more active people working on
Prio 1 and 2, low prio.
New Packages are sometimes probelmatic, regarding the time and
quality. Quality means here, not the packaging quality, but
more important the quality of upstream projects.
As I explained in one of yesterdays replies, many packaged
software has not the quality upstream wise. We should ask us,
if we want short living upstream software packaged, or if we
push those packages towards Debian. If there is interest in
Debian, we can adopt this packages later on.
In my opinion, we shouldn't have a strong focus on new packages
at all. And yes, there are cornercases where I want to see
packages, which are not in Debian yet, in Ubuntu. But this
should be an exception for special areas, e.g. xfce, kde or
gnome, when people are coming to us with special software,
which would give us a worthable addon to fix bug no. 1
I don't think, that we need all shiny, only used by a minority
(means less then < 100 users), software in our archives. If
it's important for the packager to include it into Ubuntu, IMHO
there is need for it in Debian too, so that should be the first
way to push this software.
Priority 4:
Training !
Training is important. Knowledge transfer is important.
I would like to see more MOTU-School/Ubuntu-School
sessions. Not only for packaging and other development stuff,
but also e.g. regarding Virtualization, Buildserver Setup,
Server Setup in general, Automatic Deployment of Debian/Ubuntu
releases, License Knowledge, etc...
I know, some of these topics are also covered by our Sponsors
business, but not everybody has the opportunity to spend money
for trainings. Therefore we should be able to concentrate some
of our knowledge into a training session and explain the world
how things are working in real life environments.
Priority 5:
Decreasing Red Tape (Bureaucracy) !
In the last year we saw a lot of bureaucracy added to the MOTU
team. I do think, this stops us a lot.
I know, without some bureaucracy we would sink in chaos, but
too much bureaucracy is bad.
We should try to stop this, before it gives us more problems,
and scaring away people.
Instead of introducing new barriers for old behaviour, we
should try to renew some of our processes to be adapted for
the situation now.
An example:
in the beginning, during the merging time, we just went through
MergeOMatics list of packages, and everybody was catching at
least a package. No need to think about/ping the last uploader.
"Just get our work done these days", was the devise.
Today, we need at least to look at two places, MoM+DaD, asking
the old uploader, eventually waiting too long for an answer.
This slows us down.
During Merging Time, it's important that we get hands on many
packages as we can manage, and just fix them, or file a sync
report for it. This gives us more time to fix stuff in the
later stage of development.
Communication is done via IRC and a MOTU should take care about
the last uploaded packages he/she touched in the first place.
When he/she's done with it, he/she can take whatever package
is left, without further written or spoken permission of the
last uploader.
IMHO this is the most important rule, nothing else.
Well, that is my view of the things today...
read it or trash it directly :)
\sh
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