[gentoo-dev] [Summary] GLEP 41: Making Arch Testers official Gentoo Staff

[Chris White]

Leave to gleps to make long threads ;).

So anyways, here's what the deal is so far:

Simon Stelling(blubb) starts out by producing the glep.  For those of you that 
have no idea, arch testers were something mainly promoted by the amd64 team.  
Basically, arch testers are non gentoo devs that do architecture testing and 
nothing more.  Testing ebuilds, helping with bugs, that kind of thing.

So basically, Simon wants arch testers to become official devs (with limited 
restrictions).  They've taken the staff quiz already, and he wants them to be 
officially @gentoo.org-ified and _read only_ access to the portage tree.  If 
they want read/write access they do the usual stuff to become a dev and all 
is happy.

Ciaran McCreesh(ciaranm) then comes in asking for numbers.  You know, how many 
are arch testers, how many went inactive, that sort of thing...

Martin Schlemmer(azarah) agrees with Ciaran and states that these numbers 
should be provided before addressing the glep.  Should the numbers be 
reasonable, a probation period should be created to see how it all works out.

Olivier Crete(tester) comes up with some numbers [1] and asks about council 
voting privileges.  

Stephen P. Becker(geoman) that this is short of giving them commit access to 
the tree.  He would like arch testers to be somewhat of a probation period 
from being a full dev.

Simon Stelling(blubb) says that that's fine and dandy, but also notes that not 
all Arch Testers(I'm lazy and will call them AT's now..) want to become devs, 
and some AT's will still be left.

Martin Schlemmer(azarah) comments that all the above appear ok, and asks if 
cvs has the access control to handle read only for the main gentoo-x86 cvs 
branch.  He's ok with the whole @gentoo.org email assignment though.  One 
ponit he makes is about the arch tests, in order for users to become an amd64 
dev, they have to go through the arch test too.  He just wants to make sure 
the arch tests are solid enough.

Donnie Berkholz(spyderous) wants clarification on users having to become arch 
testers in order to become arch devs.

Stephen P. Becker(geoman) still thinks that arch testers should become devs, 
and that if a mips arch tester came along and was good, they'd skip steps and 
make said person a dev.

Homer Parker(hparker) states that this glep was made for the arch testers that 
don't wish to become devs, because of time restraints or commitment.  Homer 
also notes that AT's have been effectively utilized for amd64 and ppc.

Stephen P. Becker(geoman) questions why these arch testers should become devs 
if they get more access than some other devs get.

Homer Parker(hparker) asks what privileges that at's get that most devs don't.

Simon Stelling (blubb) posts some facts, which I'll put here because they're 
short and important:

"As of now, amd64 has 20 ATs, 6 of them became devs, 1 is inactive. The rest 
stayed AT. The "oldest" of the remaining has been AT since February, the 
youngest since Aug 23, so I think it definitively is."

Homer Parker(hparker) states ppc has 3-4 AT's

Joseph Jezak(josejx) clarifies ppc has 3 devs, and 1 has become an official 
dev.

Simon Stelling(blubb) clarifies that users should become AT members before 
becoming a dev, but emphasizes should, as this can be different in some 
situations.

Homer Parker(hparker) mentions that the AT before dev requirement has worked 
well with amd64, and that if they see an AT member with skills, they will 
approach them about becomming a dev.

So there's your summary of glep 41 so far.

If this gets any larger I'll make a part II :p.

[1] http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/base/amd64/tests/index.xml?part=1&chap=1

Chris White