<html><head></head><body><div class="yahoo-style-wrap" style="font-family:Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;font-size:13px;"><div><div>Dear Ubuntu developers,<br><br><div>in the last year we had/did a lot of work with merges and syncs,</div><div>and sometimes people get angry because somebody stole their merge,</div><div>or because somebody sponsored an upload stealing one</div><div>(we have also Ubuntu Sponsors, whose job is to sponsor merges).</div><br><div>I propose to write down some basic rule on this topic,</div><div>so we can hopefully avoid misunderstandings in the future,</div><div>or at least try to let people merging stuff without having to fear of somebody</div><div> getting mad for the work.<br></div><br><div>E.g. we have a lot of outstanding merges in the page, some of them are more than one year old,</div><div>and probably the last uploader is not even an Ubuntu member anymore.</div><br>So the proposed solution is really simple:<br> <br> 1) The last uploader for a merge is considered the last Ubuntu Developer who worked or sponsored the package. We exclude:<br> - no change rebuilders (because they didn't work on the package)<br> - security uploaders (because otherwise security team will be the last uploader for half of the archive, but their job is just to apply security patches, not to maintain the archive)<br><br> So, in case there is an UbuntuN, you should go N-1 and iterate until you find a changelog entry showing somebody did the work or apply a delta to the package.<br><br> 2) you can consider a merge as "orphaned" if the previous uploader didn't touch it for 6 months, without putting a "Comment" on the merge page.<br> - if you want a package not being merged, you need to state it explictly on the merge page, otherwise after 6 months, the upload is considered "orphaned", and everybody is happy<br> to take it over.<br> This doesn't mean you *should* upload without attempting to communicate with the last uploader, maybe with IRC or email exchanges, but nobody should feel bad for a package being stolen if they prove to lack time to do it.<br> <br> 3) if the last uploader didn't make the package migrate, because he stop caring, you can steal the -proposed merge with a delay of 1 month,<br> but in this case since the upload is recent, communication or bug is requested, so we can track reasons for the -proposed delay<br><br>if you agree, I propose to edit the merging [1] wiki page to reflect the above<br><br>[1] https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuDevelopment/Merging</div><div><br></div><div>Cheers!</div><div><br></div><div>Gianfranco<br></div></div></div></body></html>