Re: [gentoo-project] Re: [gentoo-dev] The mis-concept of "slacking" in Gentoo

[Jorge Manuel B. S. Vicetto]

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On 30-06-2010 00:12, Sebastian Pipping wrote:
> Jorge,
>
>
> On 06/17/10 03:10, Jorge Manuel B. S. Vicetto wrote:
>> So everyone can have an idea, I'd suggest looking at the list of
>> the open retirement bugs[1]. As there seems to be some confusion
>> about the policies to retire developers, please read the
>> undertakers page[2].
>
> Interesting links, thanks.
>
>
> Two things come to my mind:  Step 2 of the undertakers page reads:
>
> "When sending an email to the developer in question, make sure you
> tell him, that he might get retired due to being inactive."
>
> If I'm not mistaken this is telling the developer about potential
> retirement on first direct contact.  If that's true I don't
> consider it very sensitive.  After all our goal is to keep that
> developer in, not out.  So my proposal is:  please add another two
> weeks and a second mail so the first one does not mention
> retirement.  How about that?
>

One aspect of the undertakers work that is not mentioned in the
project page is that we generally start our work from the mails people
send announcing their retirement and from the automatic activity mails
that are sent to our alias.
So as stated in step 2 and after doing a filtering of active people
from the above mails, we start by approaching developers, their
project(s) lead(s) and the developers themselves trying to investigate
whether a developer is MIA, really stopped contributing or if he / she
is active in other ways. We only move on to step 3 where we reopen the
bug and start sending the official e-mails about possible retirement,
if we are convinced the developer is really inactive.
You have a very good point and one that the undertakers team really
embraces - the goal of the undertakers work is not to "kick"
developers out, but to get them to resume contribution to the project.
There are however certain minimal levels of commitment that we expect
and ask from developers.

>
> The other thing is: what are the reasons to retire inactive
> developers? Are these reasons documented somewhere?

There are some considerations about retirement in section 3[1] of the
"Developer Relations Policy Guide"[2] and the undertakers project
page[3] states that undertakers "handle{s} developer retirement, both
when developers announce their retirement as well as due to developer
inactivity."

The following is a list with a few reasons to retire inactive developers:

 * security considerations regarding access to Gentoo infra, including
tampering of the tree
 * need to ensure that maintainers are accessible, take care of
packages and bugs and that they reply on due time to community
contacts and requests
 * desire to have project and team membership, as well as package
maintenance reflect reality
 * make it clear what areas of the project are understaffed and what
packages require new maintainers
 * need to ensure that developers keep up to date regarding policies
and use of the tree by using it

 [1] - http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/devrel/policy.xml#doc_chap3
 [2] - http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/devrel/policy.xml
 [3] -
http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/devrel/undertakers/index.xml#doc_chap1

> Thanks!
>
>
>
> Sebastian
>

- -- 
Regards,

Jorge Vicetto (jmbsvicetto) - jmbsvicetto at gentoo dot org
Gentoo- forums / Userrel / Devrel / KDE / Elections
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