"official" MOTU projects (was: Morgue for MOTU ?)

[Reinhard Tartler]

Stephan Hermann wrote:
>> No, you can't *force* a volunteer to do anything.  That's not the same
>> thing as "no expectations".  I think it's reasonable to set a number of
>> expectations of MOTUs, document them, and then require that, if you want to
>> be part of the team, that you abide by those expectations.  If you are
>> unwilling or unable to meet the necesary expectations, it's "thanks for
>> your contributions, but you're off the team".
>
> You can't force or expect anything from someone. The volunteer is starting his 
> work because he wants to. He will end his work, because he wants to, has no 
> time anymore or whatever reason he has.

This way auxiliary fire brigade would never work. But TTBOMK it does.

> The Ubuntu way of handling this is, document your work, become a Member, and 
> after some time, become an ubuntu-dev with universe/multiverse upload rights. 
> The Ubuntu / ubuntu-dev membership won't last forever, they are limited to 1 
> to 2 years. If they're not renewed you loose your rights automatically. Thx 
> to LP.

I think this will become a serious problem in perhaps one or two years.

> This is different from Debian, where someone has to write a lot of emails and 
> waiting for no response to set the maintainer as MIA.

?? - Did you have to write a lot of emails? The correct procedure
handling inactive Maintainers in Debian is documented here:
http://www.debian.org/doc/developers-reference/ch-beyond-pkging.en.html#s-mia-qa

Something we have not (yet) documented, but I think we should do so.

>> "No expectations" is, IMO, one of the leading causes of problems in
>> volunteer organisations.  Nobody feels a need to do anything beyond
>> "because I want to at the moment", and things fall apart.  In the larger
>> context, society works on expectations -- courtesy, norms, and so on, are
>> all expectations that society "in general" applies to it's members.
>
> That's right, and that's the reason why "volunteer only distribution" will 
> never succeed. Debian (as volunteer only org) will never see officially 
> supported commercial apps, but Ubuntu/Progeny/insert your favorite 
> (semi-commercial) debian derivative here, will see them.

I strongly disagree. For me, debian is the most successful distribution
on this planet, measuring the numbers of developers and users.
Comercially supported applications is not one of the core goals from
debian. You can read them here: http://www.us.debian.org/social_contract

Again something we don't have, but I think we should at least think
about something comparable.

> For me, volunteers are coming and are going. It's a continous flow of "human 
> resources" over time. Is that bad? No. 

This is how maintaining universe currently works. This is to me mainly
because we have serious problems with the workload, and need as many
volunteers as we can get.

Greetings,
	Reinhard