Application to form delegated team for sosreport

[Dan Streetman]

On Fri, May 6, 2022 at 4:33 PM Sebastien Bacher <seb128 at ubuntu.com> wrote:
>
> Hey Dan, DMB,
>
> Le 04/05/2022 à 19:12, Dan Streetman a écrit :
> > So, any member have any further discussion for this before we vote?
>
> We discussed it in the last meeting and I think it's an ok set to request.
>
> I'm new in the DMB though and I'm unsure what is the standard flow for
> new set. I would have expected a request for a new set to come in
> response to a need, e.g one person requesting ppu for a/some packages,
> then another member wanting similar rights, demonstrating that we would
> benefit from have a set.

The main problem here is that each any every application to the DMB
can take quite a long time. As an example, while the team now has less
problem with attendance/participation, this specific application is
already over a month old, and has been through 2 DMB meetings. In the
past, applications could go for multiple months, and I don't think
anything has fundamentally changed in the DMB to ensure that doesn't
happen again in the future.

Thus, applying to create a new packageset with a dedicated uploaders
team will almost certainly be the longest step in this process. Adding
new packages to an existing packageset has, historically at least,
been much faster and easier than considering adding new PPU rights,
especially for multiple people at once (not sure if that has ever been
done). While applying for an existing packageset uploaders team might
not be faster or easier than applying for PPU, it certainly isn't
slower. And at some point, one of the PPU uploaders will have to apply
to the DMB to convert everything over to a packageset uploader team,
or some PPU applicant will have their application delayed while the
DMB converts everything.

So, while doing PPU might at first be less work for the DMB, it would
most certainly not be less work for applicants.

>
> Going back to that specific request, you said you would be the first to
> join. Do you have other members in mind that you think will join? Active
> contributors to sosreport who regularly need sponsoring today but never
> bothered requesting a ppu? Or do you see the creation of the set as a
> first step to bring contributors onboard?

For clarification, my team (i.e. Canonical sustaining engineering)
already maintains sosreport in Ubuntu. At least 2 other members of the
team will almost certainly join, hopefully more, however I (or someone
else) has to first convince them to go through this process.

>
> I hope the questions don't feel like I'm pushing back on the request
> which I don't intend to do. I'm just trying to understand what are the
> standard practices and when it makes sense to suggests to go the ppu way
> rather than the new set one.

As far as I know, we (i.e. the DMB) do not have any rules or even
guidelines for this. I agree it would be good to have something for
this topic; it was also brought up by sil2100 during discussion of
fnordahl's PPU application (but the opposite - fnordahl applied for
PPU and sil2100 suggested creating a packageset instead).

Since I'm also on the DMB (for now, at least ;-), I think it's totally
fine and appropriate for us to discuss these details. However for
applicants who are not on the DMB, discussions like this are IMHO
outside the range of questions that they should reasonably be expected
to answer. I think there should be clear, explicit documentation on
this for applicants to read and understand before applying, and for
DMB members to refer to while deliberating. Having specific written
policies/rules will save *everyones* time; for example in this
situation if the (written) policy/rule was a new packageset team
requires at least 2 initial members, I wouldn't have bothered to apply
at all until I found at least one other team member to join me.

Perhaps you could own a DMB action item to start a discussion to
create a specific (written) policy for this situation, or at least
some kind of written guidelines?

Personally, I think it would be beneficial to have written policies
and guidelines for *all* DMB processes/procedures/policies, but I
think that would need one or more people to own it and drive it to
completion. Perhaps a written high-level 'charter' for the team and
more detailed written 'policies' :)

>
> Cheers,
> Sebastien Bacher
>
>
>
> --
> Devel-permissions mailing list
> Devel-permissions at lists.ubuntu.com
> Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/devel-permissions