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

[Ciaran McCreesh]

On Tue, 13 Sep 2005 00:39:31 -0500 Brian Harring <ferringb@g.o>
wrote:
| Each has a role, don't blur the AT definition into ebuild devs unless 
| you've after eliminating AT positions (something I doubt going by
| your previous QA threads); if you're after that, state so please.

Not at all. I'd like it much more if every new potential tree developer
had to go through a phase of being an AT (or an equivalent role for
doing ebuild development). It's a great way to find out whether people
are *really* going to be good as a developer.

| Your metric frankly is rather vague.  Come up with one applicable to 
| AT's rather then vague terms impying AT's are not of the 'elite' 
| ebuild dev standard please.

Bah, it's not elitism. It's a matter of experience.

| IOW, nail down your metric, then apply it to the existing AT's (since 
| they are what we have to work with), and then re-raise your views
| that they "don't know what they're doing".

Uh, that isn't my view. My view is that if they aren't yet experienced
enough to have tree commit access then they're not yet experienced
enough to vote.

This is entirely separate from other developer roles. There's more than
one way to become an experienced developer, some of which don't involve
touching the tree.

| > An arch tester has not committed himself to the project for the same
| > length of time as a full developer.
| 
| This is mild BS, since it's a common issue to all classes of gentoo 
| volunteers.  Further, stats provided (as were requested) I'd posit
| are actually better then ebuild dev stats, although worth noting the 
| sampling period differs.

Try comparing it against the stats for the first month or two of every
ebuild dev.

| > Uhm... Different people have different skill levels. Some of this is
| > down to natural ability, some of it is down to experience. Arch
| > testers have not yet proven themselves. Full developers have (at
| > least in theory...).
| 
| Not much for the natural ability bit/elitist stuff; the question is 
| what they've demonstrated, the work done.  Doesn't matter if it 
| takes a person 20 hours, or 1, it's the end product people see, 
| and what ultimately matters (as you've pointed out in re: to QA).

There are times when being able to get something right *quickly* is
extremely important. Sometimes it makes no difference, sometimes it
does.

| Beyond that, I don't agreew with the "Arch testers haven't proven
| themselves". They wouldn't be marked as AT's by the arch if they
| hadn't demonstrated some form of worth, just the same as ebuild devs
| aren't recruited if they haven't shown some form of worth (this
| includes ability to stick around for more then a month).  Screwups
| happen, but the stats offered are a pretty good indication they've
| got that angle addressed imo.

The whole point of the AT role is that it's used as a kind of testing
ground for potential full developers. It's a way to get the benefit of
extra testers without having to commit to giving them tree access
straight away.

| Treating contributors as second class citizens (in terms of cvs ro 
| access and email) is a really great way to piss on people who are 
| doing a good chunk of work for gentoo.

Bah. By the same argument, why don't we give out @gentoo.org addresses
to anyone who ever files a bug report? Otherwise we're treating our
users as second class citizens!

-- 
Ciaran McCreesh : Gentoo Developer (Vim, Shell tools, Fluxbox, Cron)
Mail            : ciaranm at gentoo.org
Web             : http://dev.gentoo.org/~ciaranm