Proactively awarding developer status?

[Rafael David Tinoco]

> My proposal is this. Start by accepting *third party applications* for
> contributing developer status. We'd expect the same information as in a
> regular contribution developer application, but from a third party and
> privately[1]. We'd consider the application privately, and if we accept
> it, then we'd reach out to the second party and offer contributing
> developer status with it already having been approved. If the second
> party wants it, then it'll be done.

I am all in. I have 2 or 3 names in my head that I would nominate to
become core devs today and I'm not sure why they have never pursued
it.

> Possible downsides:
>
> 1) It moves the consideration of applications out of public view. This
> might foster bias, or the appearance of bias, especially from the
> perspective of applicants finding themselves refused. In mitigation,
> applicants will always have the choice of a regular public application.
> One risk is that most awards become private; we could mitigate that by
> actively resisting any such tendancy, for example by limiting third
> party awards by number or ratio[2]. Another mitigation might be to
> publish third party applications if they are approved and accepted.

People are afraid of public feedback as well. So this downside could
also be positive as no public feedback (bad in this case) would be
given. I don't think it makes the process obscure in any means, it is
just the DMB team trying to get more developers to contribute by
appreciating their public work.


> 3) Accidental publication of a private third party application.

We would have to be extremely careful about this, as we could involve
others without their consent. I mean, as we're considering their
public work (1) it is not obscure, but the fact that we are analysing
their work should, yes, be hidden (to protect them).

----- From Teward's inputs now:

I am +1 on limiting the 3rd part application to whoever has upload
rights (as one indicating another) today BUT I don't think we should
limit what type of application that should be. At the end of the day
we want more MOTUs, more PPUs, more CoreDev... I really, really, think
Ubuntu should start scaling more and more (of course always trying to
reduce chances of diminishing its quality).

One more thing: Since the public work analysis of the applicant will
be done secretly, I don't see why not considering all upload rights.
Like I said, I have 2 or 3 ready-to-be-core-devs applicants that don't
apply for whatever reasons they have. Imagine us offering core devs
based on what they did ? It would be a good recognition of their work
AND it would be very good to us as well (as they are good in quality).

NOW, the person recommending someone as an applicant, has to know that
without public work our job is hard and we could simply tell them
"sorry, not enough data to sustain".

Overall I'm very happy with this idea to be honest. Scaling Ubuntu
development is something that has been keeping me worried (as a DMB
member).

NOTE: AS we would not be doing this synchronously - because it does
not have an applicant waiting the results, nor the analysis of their
work would be public - we would also have the benefit of asynchronous
votes (which in a recent past has disturb applications due to lack of
quorum - not happening lately though).

Best,

-rafaeldtinoco