Re: Suggestion: Time limit for NM process
Hi,
The view on what is required, and what isn't depends heavily on what
people think the NM process consists off.
I personally think that we should reflect more on the mentoring aspect
of the process than the 'long list of questions' that we are currently
putting a lot of emphasis on. I'm not saying The 'long list of
questions' method is a waste of time; it has some advantages. In
particular everyone gets to do the same thing, but it's not doing a
great job of encouraging some people in joining the project.
On Sun, Apr 02, 2006 at 04:13:54PM +0200, Jutta Wrage wrote:
> Am 02.04.2006 um 14:00 schrieb Thomas Hood:
>
> >I don't think that it's the same. I was active in packaging,
> >documentation and other stuff for quite a while before entering NM.
> >This didn't prepare me for the famous T&S questions about library
> >symbol
> >versioning, and so on. It didn't really make sense for my AM to be
> >waiting for me while I researched these matters.
>
> Maybe, there should be a list of of things, people will have to learn
> before entering the NM status on the pages somewhere?
>
> What I am still wondering about: If one is already a package
> maintainer and does not know essential things, how can he/she have
> packages in the distribution?
Some people know enough that they know when they don't know enough to
deal with some issues. Most people don't do library packaging for
example. Does this mean we should ensure everyone understands library
packaging, or does it mean that we need to ensure everyone knows that
they shouldn't touch that unless they understand what's going on? This
is just an example, but the same principle applies against many things.
> And if we are talking about time limits. Shouldn't there be also a
> minimum time for NM status? How can one reach the end within two days
> as I have read some time ago?
What's the problem with people going through too quick? If someone is
that prepared for it, then that's great.
> Things to think about:
I think that before we go that far, we need to decide what we want
being a DD to mean in terms of things like voting rights, different
package upload privileges, the address and access to project machines.
Once you've got that, we need to decide whether we want the NM process
to work as a mentoring process or just the test that it currently is.
> - - some NM only want to get the DD status as a status (like "I am a DD
> and have a debian.org address")
Public recognition is one of the few ways we can reward those who do
things for Debian. I'd be careful in terms of changing that too much.
Sure, people don't just do Debian things for the email address, but
it's something that's kind of visible.
> - - some NM do not think much about the meaning of being a DD and the
> responisbilities
> - - some Applicants do not want to prepare themselves before entering
> the NM stage
We're kind of encouraging that by having such a long process now.
"Start now, and by the time things are in place, you'll probably know
what you need to know". This of course means the process take longer,
so other people start the process when they're even less ready, etc,
etc.
> - - some find the process too difficult and instead of accepting that
> they have not the clue to package, they want it easier
I don't think anyone has complained about that? People just want to
avoid wasting hours on filling paperwork in.
> - - some complain about the amount of time (in hours, not the over all
> time) it needs to learn and answer questions.
>
> So we have different points of view:
>
> - - Debian needs high quallity developers
We can't test with a simple test like that how well people are going to
be able to work within the Debian community. We can only do by
observing how people act over period of time. Ironically, all the
questions in the process test how people work on their own instead.
> - - Being a DD seems to be something more important than doing the work
> actually
?
> - - AMs sometimes have lack of time
> - - The learning process is not well organized in some points
>
> Fulfilling the needs of people, who find it important to be able to
> call themselves a DD may be contrary a lot to the needs of the Debian
> Project, but that would make less work for AMs.
Remember that many DDs who have done a lot in their time in Debian
started out by maintaining a package or two of very limited use.
Even if half the people don't do anything useful, the other half will.
> So you cannot do it well for everyone.
>
> In my point of view as a long time Debian user, the best is always to
> keep in mind: What is the best for Debian Project and _not_ what is
> the best for the applicants (or someone else personally). - But that
> is difficult to reach as Debian is a collection of very individual
> people.
That's going to be fun =-)
Pasc
--
Pascal Hakim 0403 411 672
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