Making it easier for people to work with upstreams

[Sense Hofstede]

Hello,

Op maandag 13-1-2010 schreef Daniel Holbach <daniel.holbach at ubuntu.com>:
> When we started thinking of "Adopt an Upstream" it was the name of an
> initiative. It's not meant to replace anything.
>
> The discussion:
>
>  - what is confusing in our processes today
>  - what we need to clarify in terms of documentation
>  - how interested people find out about the possibilities
>  - how we learn from each other and form best practices
>
> to me is much more important than the name of the group people who are
> part of the initiative or the name of the initiative itself.
>
> We want to revisit how people who are passionate about a certain piece
> of software can be most useful, both to Ubuntu and upstream. This was
> never meant to replace anything or shut-down any other initiative.

Good. It's not that I got the impression that the goal of the project
was to crush
all other related projects and I'm also not interested in a discussion about the
names right now. I just wanted to make sure that no efforts would be duplicated
and that there wouldn't be worked on two different projects with
overlapping goals
-- which Bruno already outlined very well.

I would suggest to add information to your useful Upstream/Adopt page[1] about
the adoption project of the Bug Squad[2].

> What I do think we should make clear though is that there is no "big
> maintainer lock" and there's nobody who handles one project exclusively
> and that we want to collaborate as good as we can.
>

This is something I wasn't afraid of, and something I also try to emphasize
when writing wiki pages for Adopt-a-Package. I think it would indeed be wise
to make this clear for Adopt-an-Upstream as well, like you said, in order to
not scare casual contributors and novices away.

Komputes has some good points and I agree with them.

Lets see if I understand the project well enough already. There is
Adopt-an-Upstream, which is a group of people focussed on a particular part of
an upstream project, mostly centred around a certain application. The tasks of
this group vary and involve almost all parts of the community.

Then there is the Upstream Contact. An Upstream Contact is the formalised
link between upstream and Ubuntu. However, is this for a whole upstream, or
like Adopt-an-Upstream mostly centred around one application? What is the
relation between the tasks of the Upstream Contact and the Adopt-an-Upstream
group, who should do what? The list of tasks on the wiki[3] seems a bit too much
for one person to me.

I would suggest to make the Bug Squad's Adopt-a-Package[2] initiative a part of
the Adopt-an-Upstream group, or a subteam, depending on the size of the group.
This because the description of the Upstream Contact[3] does suggest the Contact
to take ownership of all bugs and work on them with a group of volunteers. This
group of volunteers could be what's now the Adopt-a-Package group[4] and this
subteam would also report to the Bug Squad in order to allow us to keep an eye
on the bug status of Ubuntu. A separate adoption team could be created for
moving bugs without package to the right one.

[1] https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DanielHolbach/Upstream/Adopt
[2] https://wiki.ubuntu.com/BugSquad/AdoptPackage
[3] https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Upstream/Contacts
[4] https://wiki.ubuntu.com/BugSquad/AdoptionTeam

Regards,
-- 
Sense Hofstede
[ˈsɛn.sə ˈɦɔf.steːdə]