Re: [gentoo-dev] Arch testers need themselves an IRC channel so I can love them more

[Rich Freeman]

On Fri, Sep 16, 2016 at 9:00 AM, Kent Fredric <kentnl@g.o> wrote:
>
> As such, I believe Arch Testers should have themselves an IRC channel,
> where Arch testers are OP, and membership of arch testers is voluntary
> ( but encouraged ).
>

The history here is that ATs typically hung out in the arch channels
themselves, like #gentoo-amd64.

Back in the day when the arches were new, there was a lot of general
activity in these channels around adapting packages/etc.  For the more
minor arches it may still be that way.  The ATs were viewed as just
another part of that.  Non-dev ATs were typically given at least voice
in these channels.  Back in those days the arch leads were also fairly
active positions.  Different arches sometimes had different policies
on the role of ATs, and for non-dev ATs there was close coordination
since a dev would need to make the commits.

These days upstream is a lot more attentive to the more popular archs
(IMO), so there isn't as much widespread patching/porting/etc going
on.  I think this is part of what has led to the drop in arch team
activity, and AT activity as well (nobody is
recruiting/encouraging/etc them).

I'm not trying to dismiss your suggestion.  I just wanted to point out
that ATs do actually have a place of sorts right now other than -dev.
They just don't have one place across all arches.  Maybe that should
change, maybe not.  I'd be interested in the thoughts of the ATs
themselves.

-- 
Rich