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

[Robie Basak]

Thank you for volunteering! As we have at least one qualified person
committed, I'd be very happy to see the backports pocket continue. As a
concrete proposal, I suggest we do this by reforming ~ubuntu-backporters
as follows.

In particular I wanted to enumerate a specific transition plan and the
reformed team's responsibities below, since my opinion on sunsetting the
backports pocket is only moot if this actually happens.

Feedback appreciated!

# 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.

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

To get started I suggest continuing the old process, while allowing for
the new team's leadership to drive process reform.

# Transition Plan

 * This entire plan is predicated on there being at least one suitably
   qualified, experienced and established Ubuntu developer committed to
   taking on both roles. So far, that's Dan, but others may join him.

 * ~techboard takes ownership of ~ubuntu-backporters.

 * Existing but inactive team members are removed.

 * Those that we have agreed will take on the first role are added as
   team admins.

 * Those still active in the team and are willing to do the second role
   (if any; I think only Iain qualifies if he is willing) are added as
   regular team members.

 * A process for future management of team membership would be up to the
   team itself to establish.

# Team responsibilities

Here I've tried to define what we need, rather than specify how the
backporters team will deliver it. I'd prefer to leave the team to drive
that. For example, Gunnar asked some good questions in the thread; I've
deliberately not answered those, leaving that for the backporters team
to figure out later as part of the process reform.

 * 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.

How does this sound? Feedback appreciated.

Robie


[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 am not suggesting that we
require the backporters team to do any more than that - for example
responding to a backport request with no upload with "please find a
sponsor[2] to upload an appropriate backported package and then we'll
review it" would be fine. But the process must avoid the current
situation where only privileged people can get their uploads reviewed,
and everyone else is blocked.

[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.
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