Problems with getting commit rights on the ubuntu-doc svn repo

[Matthew East]

Dear Devs,

Hope this is the right list to raise this issue.

The documentation team works on an svn repository hosted on Ubuntu
servers. As a result, the access rights are controlled by the Ubuntu
admins. The current procedure for getting new members svn commit access
is to send an RT request with the relevant member's details.

However the problem with the current procedure is that this takes a long
time: generally a matter of several weeks pass before the member is
given access. At an Ubuntu-doc meeting last year where the Community
Council was present, this matter was briefly discussed and it was
promised that all commit requests would be dealt with within 48 hours
(if I recollect correctly).

It is obvious that the admins are too busy to deal with these requests
within that time, indeed I don't think a request has ever been dealt
with that quickly. While this is perfectly understandable, given the
amount of work that the admins have, it is not a satisfactory system for
us.

The problem gives rise to quite serious issues: first of all
productivity is reduced because regular contributors can't commit to the
archive and second of all, because the process of getting upload rights
is a lot slower, new contributors may be turned off the project and go
and do other things which don't have the same constraints: unofficial
guides, wiki work, etc. A solution is needed.

The admins (again, probably understandably) do not respond to my emails
or pings on irc about the issue, so I thought I would seek the help of
the -devel list. Is there a better solution? Is there any way that more
direct control can be gained over the access rights? Ideally of course,
it would all work via the launchpad group, and perhaps in the future
that will be possible. But for now, especially while we are still using
svn and not bzr, another solution is needed.

Thanks for reading, hope this doesn't sound to whingy,

Matt
-- 
mdke at ubuntu.com
gnupg pub 1024D/0E6B06FF
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