Gentoo Archives: gentoo-dev

From: Markos Chandras <hwoarang@g.o>
To: gentoo-dev@l.g.o
Subject: Re: [gentoo-dev] [RFC]: Proxy-maintainer project
Date: Thu, 18 Mar 2010 20:29:14
Message-Id: 201003182229.33940.hwoarang@gentoo.org
In Reply to: Re: [gentoo-dev] [RFC]: Proxy-maintainer project by Thomas Sachau
1 On Thursday 18 March 2010 21:09:43 Thomas Sachau wrote:
2 > On 03/18/2010 05:29 PM, Markos Chandras wrote:
3 > > Dear fellow developers,
4 > >
5 > > A new project is about to start so I am requesting your feedback
6 > >
7 > > The primary goal of the Proxy Maintainers[1] project is to create and
8 > > maintain relationships between developers and users in order to ensure
9 > > packages in the
10 >
11 > > Gentoo tree stay up to date. This involves a few main tasks:
12 > Also it is a nice idea, i dont think, it will help Gentoo in the longer
13 > term. As i can see with the Sunrise project, most users only want to get
14 > their ebuild initially into portage/sunrise. They also listen to
15 > suggestions, improve their code and read a document to get access. But in
16 > most cases, they only do the initial commit or initial commit+some version
17 > bumps before they leave again and the ebuild is unmaintained.
18 > I dont think, we want to proxy for those users, since this would result in
19 > either the proxy maintaining the ebuilds or many more maintainer-needed
20 > ebuild in main tree.
21 These users are not our target group. Our target group are highly motivated
22 users who are willing to see their ebuilds on portage tree, they just dont
23 know who to poke or contact us to make that happen. Some of them will be from
24 the Sunrise userbase since we have these kind of Gentoo users there
25 > The next group of users are those, who actively
26 > maintain their ebuild, also help other users and do this for a longer
27 > time. Usually those users get a mentor offer sooner or later and then
28 > become a Gentoo Developer.
29 Not always. I can remember at least 4 different occasions where it took them >1
30 year becoming a developer. Proxy-maintainer project is a good way to keep them
31 around without pushing them completing their quizzes
32 > So for those users, who are willing to help and
33 > can do this for longer time (requirements for Gentoo devs), sunrise is
34 > already a good starting point and base to get in.
35 Of course. But remember that we target different user group. Through this
36 project, we intend to lower the number of maintainer-wanted packages instead
37 of pushing them into an overlay. The difference is that, when a developer picks
38 a package from sunrise overlay, we maintains it by himself when he puts it to
39 portage tree. What we want to achieve here is to make users responsible for
40 their package in portage tree.
41 > The only case, where
42 > there might be a (minimal) profit are those rare users, who initially
43 > commit their ebuild and maintain exactly and only this ebuild for a longer
44 > time. There might be 2 or 3 users doing it this way, so creating just
45 > another project for this idea is imho a bit too much work for minimal
46 > profit.
47 Proxy-maintainer is not wide spread to users so they dont know this proxying
48 portage ebuilds is an option.
49 >
50 > I think, it might be better to send the interested users so Sunrise, where
51 > they can learn the basics and afterwards you could still offer them to
52 > proxy the ebuild (sunrise has an extra branch for proxy maintainers).
53 > A much better idea is imho to make the idea and way of Sunrise more public
54 > and easier to see without searching (Homepage, FAQ, Forums), so interested
55 > users can find it easier. In addition, every dev, who is interested in
56 > proxy maintaining something can do this via Sunrise.
57 Sunrise is an excellent place to train users. But we still to let them know
58 that they can control their ebuilds on portage through us. We need to let them
59 know what proxy-maintainer is and how to take advantage of it
60
61 Are you willing to to adjust the Sunrise page accordingly? Like listing info
62 about proxy maintainer thingie and possibly another column on the developer
63 project table listing our areas of interest? Something like merging the two
64 projects or extending the Sunrise one if you like
65
66 --
67 Markos Chandras (hwoarang)
68 Gentoo Linux Developer
69 Web: http://hwoarang.silverarrow.org

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