New Official Flavor Process Issues (Was Re: Ubuntu Cinnamon Remix packages)
Thomas Ward
teward at thomas-ward.net
Thu Jul 28 21:14:44 UTC 2022
Okay, I need to point out a few things here. And suggest that we all
take a step back and take a deep breath before we have any more
responses on here. (hint: Joshua: take a deep breath)
Note that all statements made by me on this are said with my multiple
hats on. CC, Core Developer, DMB, and Debian Maintainer hats on (I am
not a DD in Debian, but I am very familiar with Debian's processes of
packaging and adopting packages, and gaining upload rights for various
packages). As well as personal (non-hatted) observations.
Message responses are in line below.
On 7/28/22 15:52, Joshua Peisach wrote:
> Jeremy,
>
> UCR has been around for 3 years. Plan since day 0, when I went on
> discourse and brought up the idea was flavor.
>
> There have been reasons I've been so hesitant to reach out - these
> dang barriers. Again, for you and current devs it doesn't matter but
> for community members it is essentially impossible to move forward.
>
> "Escalation" - I've wanted to apply for PPU status to get my packages
> into universe but other roadblocks keeps popping up.
(DMB) So just do it: file your application. In Ubuntu, we don't
necessarily *care* about the Debian side of it for PPU rights. We'll
evaluate you based on the requested packages for your PPU rights
application. We factor in access to the packages in Debian when it
comes into PPU upload permissions. If you don'thave upload permissions
for the packages you need, you should request it - regardless of
'roadblocks'.
(DM) If the packages are abandoned in Debian, but the packages haven't
yet been orphaned, look into Salvaging the package [1]. If the packages
are orphaned, then follow the processes of adopting the orphaned
packages. If there is a team managing the packages, then contact the
team and request access or rights, whether they're Salsa / git upload
rights, or actual upload rights. Note that 'upload rights' typically
means you need to go through the Debian Maintainer [2] process and
become a DM to upload packages you work on / own without a sponsor.
(Equivalent to PPU for Ubuntu - case in point I'm a DM with upload
access to NGINX (a web server) as a full maintainer along with two
others, the XCA package (a X.509 cert management tool) as sole
maintainer, and vmfs6-tools (for VMFS filesystems) as sole maintainer,
all can be uploaded to Debian ftp-master by me as I've been granted
upload permissions for those packages and such).
> For example, the Debian cinnamon maintainer left Debian and me and
> Fabio fantoni as aforementioned, we both deserve rights but we don't
> get that.
(DM, CC, DMB) Whether you feel *entitled* to rights or not in any distro
is irrelevant. What you determine as 'entitled' is not going to be the
requirements or criterion for rights in Debian or even Ubuntu. Proof of
need and acceptance of your contribs by relevant teams in Debian who
manage packages, etc. is what determines whether you get rights or not.
There's a reason there's complicated application processes in place - to
make sure that if you *have* rights you aren't going to totally screw up
the packages or break things. Hence why it's critical these application
processes be followed.
(DMB) Debian has no bearing on Ubuntu upload rights directly, so whether
you feel entitled to package rights in Debian is irrelevant for a PPU
assessment in Ubuntu. Though a factor, if you were a DD requesting
upload rights for a specific package you maintain, that's a different
process, and though Debian maintainership privs are a factor, that won't
guarantee you Ubuntu upload rights, because we have completely different
internal processes than Debian regarding stable release updates, etc.
(CC) I'm going to stop you right here on this front - the tone and
wording you are using are argumentative and do *not* help you. The
moment you say "we both deserve X" along with the rest of the tone of
your message suggests that you are highly irritated, but also that you
feel 'entitled' to something that you haven't proven via other processes
such as the Developer Membership Board applications. Those processes
exist for a reason - use them.
> The only escalation that has been happening is that Erich decided to
> help me and upload the ubuntucinnamon-* packages to universe.
(CoreDev, Sponsor) You could've emailed the Sponsors list to request a
sponsor as well. While I personally don't touch the GUI stacks where
possible, and actively avoid GUI sponsorships for the stacks and such
myself, there're a lot of other people on the Sponsors list who would
happily sponsor. An email to the sponsors calmly asking for someone to
review your package for sponsoring would go far.
> But the directions are still unclear as to what to do. Should a
> germinate seed be in Launchpad before or after applying to flavor
> status? When it says "one or more developer with upload rights" what
> does the at mean?
(DMB) I'll give you the same statement I gave Lubuntu a long while back
before I was on the Lubuntu Council and actively contributing. "One or
more developers with upload rights" means that you need a dedicated
person on your team who has upload rights for those packages (so in this
case, a PPU packageset or a MOTU or a Core Dev) on the primary
development team. For Lubuntu, that was more or less Simon Quigley and
a few others with rights. When I joined the team of Lubuntu, and
offered to review packages, etc. and sponsor where necessary, that added
a Core Dev to the team, so that meant I could upload on their behalf.
In this case, Erich qualifies as a member with upload rights, assuming
he's on the primary development team and not just a sponsor.
> You already have upload rights. I don't.
(DMB) See my DMB hat note above where "just apply"
>
> And to say that "oh we are using the community council and you're
> being unfair to the TB", we are just trying to figure out what we are
> supposed to do.
(CC) In the defense of the TB, I **do** believe that we do need this
process and its requirements better documented. However, that could
have been a simple email request to the TB, and did **NOT** need CC
escalation. To clarify on Erich's statement that "the other council
members agree", we don't agree that this needed CC escalation. We DO
agree that documentation of this process for flavors, etc. could be
better done, but we don't all agree that the CC needed to be escalated
to in this case. So in the TB's defense, this should not have been so
rapidly brought up as a "CC problem" as Erich alone raised it as such,
and is now operating with the CC hat **without** quorate decision that
this needs CC attention.
>
> You could say "oh just apply for status" but trying to find those
> places of contribution can be difficult and it feels very rare to see
> someone new come in and get their dev membership nowadays, especially
> one who isn't already a member.
(DMB) So ask where to find that information. "New people" who want dev
membership right away, though, typically are rejected because we
*require* proof of contributions. PPU rights are detailed here -
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuDevelopers#PerPackage - but all applicants
for different access rights are detailed here, which is linked in the
same page:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DeveloperMembershipBoard/ApplicationProcess
>
> And to top it off, make requests for improvements individually?
> Currently I am silenced.
(All Hats) I see no proof of this. If you feel 'silenced' or 'ignored',
then you should bring that up with the relevant boards as a complaint,
not just 'bottle it up'
> Nobody cares if I say a thing; in general, I get ghosted anyways or
> treated as if I'm dumb. To many, my input doesn't matter and if I were
> to email TB right now they would probably not respond, or not even let
> my email go through the mailing list.
(CC) TB handles a ton of stuff, and they are mostly Canonical employees,
so you need to have **lots of patience**. TB is the final technical
level board before the CC in the Ubuntu governance structure, and while
many things are delegated off to specific teams, etc. for decisions, the
TB oversees everything. So they have a lot of things they all do.
Patience is required, sometimes more than a week, and a gentle reminder
you need a reply in a civil way is a better approach than your, what I'm
going to call "outburst", here.
>
> I know I sound very harsh
(CC) You do, as I said in the beginning of my message, everyone take a
step back and **breathe**. Be calm when addressing things here.
> - but check my application page. And look at Ubuntu Cinnamon and Unity
> and their community. If you want to make a distro where we embrace
> community, put your company paychecks aside and make it happen.
(Personal) If I put aside my company paycheck every time Lubuntu needed
my attention with something infra-related because I'm the primary POC,
or if the Charcoal-SE project who help fight spam across StackExchange
sites needed my attention on something minor, I'd have no internet, no
home, no computer, and no food. Unfortunately, even as a strong
supporter of Ubuntu, Ubuntu contributions which are NOT a paid job for
me must be deprioritised in favor of critical things like **having money
to survive**.
> We want this. The community wants this.
(CC) Define "the community". If you mean the larger Ubuntu community,
then I would argue you're being superfluous. If you mean a UCR
community, that's different, but you need to be specific.
> And we aren't letting this stop us and we will not be silenced.
(CC) You will be silenced if you don't approach this situation with
civility, discipline, and the ability to not be enraged at each
individual person you talk to on this matter. Everyone understands
frustration. It's how you voice your opinions/concerns that matters,
and if you do that wrong consistently in a way that may be against CoC
especially on public lists, then it becomes a Problem(TM) that may come
back to bite you. So as I said in the beginning of my message, take a
deep breath and relax a little.
>
> If you truly believe that I need to be a core dev,
(CC, DMB) Where did it say you need core-dev? You don't need to be MOTU
or Core Dev to have upload rights for a package - just apply via the DMB
PPU process. Get the upload rights for what you need specifically in
the flavor.
> then you are saying any community member who wants to create a flavor
> needs to spend YEARS getting to that high of privilege.
(DMB, Core Dev) No, you don't need YEARS to get the privilege of upload
for the packages you need. Refer to the PPU application process.
> And that is not community friendly at all. I am a student, and I'm
> going to a magnet school in September (a CS school might I add).
(CC) Irrelevant to the point that was raised.
> School is going to get more intense and I'm not going to be spending 6
> hours a day on Ubuntu development.
(Personal) I am not employed by Canonical. The amount of *actual*
development work I do with Ubuntu nowadays is interspersed among my free
time and is not easily noticed to the public at large. And while I may
not have a ton of uploads going on right now, or a ton of development on
packages being done here at the moment, most of my energy goes into my
Full Time job and being paid for things, or going to school like I did
for university and such did NOT interfere from me putting a couple hours
a week into Ubuntu. You don't have to go hard core six hours a day of
Ubuntu work. I haven't, and yet I sit on the CC, DMB, and have Core Dev
rights today after putting a few hours work a week or so at most over
the course of time in to get the recognition and hats I have. That
didn't come from six hours a day of Ubuntu contributions, that came from
me volunteering time I have when I have it and want to contribute, over
the course of years, to get to where I am now. Nobody ever said you
have to spend 6 hours a day contributing to Ubuntu or any specific
flavor. Nor have I seen anybody be saying that now.
(DMB) Further, the requirements for PPU are a lot lower to an extent
than the requirements for MOTU and Core Dev - we still require you to
understand basic things like how the SRU process works, etc. so you
don't overstep your rights to upload specific packages, but we also
focus *only* on the pacakges you have worked on that you're applying for
in comparison to all your contributions. So the scope of what is
assessed is different, and it seems you aren't understanding this.
>
> Again, to you this is hard to understand because you already **have**
> the upload rights.
(CC) Calm down already. This level of aggressiveness and
pointedness/stabbing despite other posts in your message here is the
*wrong way* to approach this, and while we all get this way from time to
time, there's been **a lot** of this type of frustration voiced by you
in ways that **do not** get results and get you labeled as an irritant.
>
> Truly, with honesty,
> -Josh
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> *From:* Jeremy Bicha <jeremy.bicha at canonical.com>
> *Sent:* Thursday, July 28, 2022 10:20
> *To:* eeickmeyer at ubuntu.com <eeickmeyer at ubuntu.com>
> *Cc:* Steve Langasek <steve.langasek at ubuntu.com>;
> technical-board at lists.ubuntu.com <technical-board at lists.ubuntu.com>;
> community-council at lists.ubuntu.com
> <community-council at lists.ubuntu.com>; itzswirlz2020 at outlook.com
> <itzswirlz2020 at outlook.com>; ubuntu-release at lists.ubuntu.com
> <ubuntu-release at lists.ubuntu.com>
> *Subject:* Re: New Official Flavor Process Issues (Was Re: Ubuntu
> Cinnamon Remix packages)
> On Thu, Jul 28, 2022 at 9:55 AM <eeickmeyer at ubuntu.com> wrote:
> > This most certainly is not a hasty escalation. I've been aware of
> > Ubuntu Cinnamon Remix for 3 years and in that time, Joshua's intention
> > was to make it an official flavor. They have been encouraged to become
> > an official flavor since Day 0.
>
> The escalation from my perspective is that it appears to me like y'all
> made a request to become an official flavor on Saturday, got a reply
> on Sunday, and then invoked the authority of the Ubuntu Community
> Council on Wednesday. I don't think that's being fair to the Tech
> Board.
(CC) I agree with Jeremy here, the optics of this and the way you
handled this, Erich, are bad. Next time, wait for Council quorum on an
issue before we wave the CC hats around as "oh now this is CC
escalated", because the optics are just as important as the real
processes, and you didn't *need* to bring *this* up as a CC issue. You
could have simply emailed the TB and asked the TB to better document the
process, and copy the CC for awareness. This didn't need a CC
issue/escalation task though, in my opinion, so with my CC hat on, in my
opinion, you're taking non-consensus actions claiming this needed CC
intervention.
>
> You can make requests for improvement as an individual developer
> without needing to speak on behalf of the Community Council.
>
> Thank you,
> Jeremy Bicha
---
Thomas Ward
"The Man of Many Hats"
- Community Council member
- Developer Membership Board member
- Core Developer
- Debian Maintainer
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