Plan to reform the Ubuntu Backporters Team [was: Proposal: sunset the backports pockets]

[Mattia Rizzolo]

Hi!

Thank you Robie for drafting this!

On Wed, Jul 21, 2021 at 11:11:33AM +0100, Robie Basak wrote:
> # Team Roles
> 
> For clarity, initially there will be two roles in the team: 1) a
> leadership role, driving re-establishment and reform; 2) people doing
> the regular day-to-day work, such as reviews.
> 
> I think the first role could only effectively be taken by suitably
> qualified, existing and established Ubuntu developers. We'll see if
> there are any other volunteers, and if there are, see if there is
> consensus that they can also take on the role.

I agree on this.

> The second role would be open to anyone who meets the requirements of
> the new process, which is yet to be defined.

I also hereby volunteer me for the day-to-day tasks.
Mostly, I don't have enough cycles available to drive discussions and
anything related on how to reform the process, else I'd volunteer for
more, but if anything I'm positive I can handle reviews and similar.
As such, I'm happy to follow Dan or whoever is going to take lead on the
project, provided that they present a viable reform path.

> # Team responsibilities
> 
>  * Establish and manage an effective process to handle backport
>    requests. Any review process must accept or reject every backport
>    request on its technical merit, and be neutral to who is requesting
>    it[1].
> 
>  * Maintain the backports pocket based on this process, making sure that
>    all requests receive an appropriate answer in a reasonable amount of
>    time.
> 
>  * Maintain quality in the backports pocket, where the definition of
>    quality is driven by the team, but defined by consensus within the
>    wider Ubuntu developer community.
> 
>  * Handle your own process reform and membership management, but making
>    sure that any responsibility can be carried by any contributor who
>    demonstrates the required capacity and competence. Specifically,
>    since the DMB has never managed membership of ~ubuntu-backporters,
>    there is no requirement for the DMB to be involved. Unless you want
>    to delegate that, in which case that's a conversation to have with
>    the DMB.

I don't think there is a need to involve the DMB here.  I'd just say
that any members should be part of ~ubuntu-dev already, nothing more
complex than that.

> How does this sound? Feedback appreciated.

Nothing to add, your starter is great already, now we only need a lead
to lead :)

> [1] To be clear, I believe that the current process requires
> sponsorship/upload of a suitable backport, and the backporters team only
> reviews once an upload has taken place.

I believe you are wrong on this.
They way the current process is worded, uploads should be done by people
in ~ubuntu-backports only, effectively causing a huge load on the team.
The reform needed here (as you more or less imply), is that upload
rights should follow the usual rules, with ~ubuntu-backports only
reviewing the uploads once they end in the "unapproved" queue (i have no
idea how the staging queue for backports is currently called).

> [2] Availability of sponsors is a separate issue. I'd like to address
> that too, but I don't think it's appropriate to pull that into the scope
> of backports reform.

Aye, unrelated.


-- 
regards,
                        Mattia Rizzolo

GPG Key: 66AE 2B4A FCCF 3F52 DA18  4D18 4B04 3FCD B944 4540      .''`.
More about me:  https://mapreri.org                             : :'  :
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Debian QA page: https://qa.debian.org/developer.php?login=mattia  `-
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