Re: [New maintainer] Working for Debian and becoming a registered Debian developer
*Carl Mummert wrote:
> Now, I am not a 'debian developer' in that I don't have a login on
> the debian machines and thus I don't maintain any pacakges there.
> So feel free to ignore this entire message.
>
> I don't understand why an application, if sent in proper format, could not
> be automatically processed, provided that it is signed by the pgp key of a
> known developer. Of course, there is no 'proper format' since this has
> always been done by hand... but since the list of things that need to be
> in an application is so short, I cannot see why it is at all difficult.
Your arguments make some sense, but we need to look at the situation
practically as well as ideally. There are a few overworked people
doing new maintainer processing. There is not time to process all
applicants in a resonable time. Some applicants say they want to work
on something and then work on a different package altogether, some get
their account and then disappear altogether. The keyring already has
many inactive (perhaps gone for good) maintainers. As we approach
release, we want to try to control this situation somewhat. If
someone does some attention-getting work before hand, it is going to
catch the new-maintainer people's severely divided attention. Fixing
outstanding bugs, adopting an orphaned package. Getting things
packaged ahead of time; these kinds of things will encourage a
developer to say, "I'll spend my limited time supporting this person".
Don't think of it as a requirement, but an opportunity to distinguish
yourself (it's not a big deal at that, just distinguished from those
who have done nothing) and speed your application.
I was encouraged to see that a few people jumped at the opportunity
when it was presented.
John
--
John Lapeyre <lapeyre@physics.arizona.edu>, lapeyre@debian.org
Tucson,AZ http://www.physics.arizona.edu/~lapeyre
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