Re: A lot of pending packages
Petter Reinholdtsen wrote:
> My sponsoring preferences are available from
> <URL: http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-sponsoring.html >. To
> make sure I have direct contact with the prospective package
> maintainer and avoid a backlog of packages I should have sponsored, I
> want to be contacted on IRC about sponsoring. So to me,
> mentors.debian.net is a nice repository to find the source, and
> uploading there is not the last step a future package maintainer need
> to take to get her packages sponsored.
>
Hi,
Before I write anything else: I only need to have my Debian accounts
created and I'll be a DD. So, I am kind of seeing things with 2 different
viewpoint at the same time: from my sponsoree and future DD.
I got 2 suggestions to make about sponsoring. These are just raw ideas
that I am sending, I'm not sure if they are good, but I just want to share
what's in my mind. Feel free to comment and explain why I'm wrong.
Maybe we could imagine a kind of survey that the sponsor would write,
to tell how the new maintainer performed with his package, just right
after it has been sponsored. That of course, be some added sponsor's
work, but it could be kept small.
My 2nd suggestion is coming from the Maemo platform (the OS behind
the Nokia n900 that is Debian based). In Maemo, there is a "devel"
repository that includes apps that aren't necessarily in good shape. The
users know that fact when they are adding the repository which contains
packages that are not necessarily as tested, and wont complain.
I wonder if we could have such a repository in Debian, so that new
maintainers would have their packages sent there. We would have to
discuss what would be the rules to get from devel to SID. What I have
in mind could be checks like:
- the maintainer has been responsive for a period of time
- the packages of the maintainer have been in good shape as well
The issue really being the way the maintainer is reacting to issues,
rather than the issues themselves.
The advantage of this system would be that we wouldn't need so much
check to have apps going to devel. We could even think about it as a
big bazaar of ongoing work that would not need checks at all (apart
of course, licensing, that would still need strong checks). This would
prevent people from not being happy about sponsorship in SID.
The devel repository could be said as NOT part of Debian, just like
contrib and non-free.
Now, combine the 2 ideas. If a (new) maintainer has X good sponsor
surveys, then his package(s) would go from the devel repository to
SID automatically (after a DD checks for it manually and agree on
the decision), and he would gain the rights to have his packages
go directly to SID when they get sponsored.
Don't get me wrong, the idea is to have LESS checks on the sponsored
packages, rather than too much, so that we would have a faster
sponsoring process (new maintainers will be happy, sponsors too),
while still maintaining intensive quality checks in SID / testing.
Thomas
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