Future of REVU and Debian Mentors

[Andy Price]

On 30/07/07 14:12, Sarah Hobbs wrote:
> I'd question why we're encouraging our hopefuls to put in new packages,
> when for the majority of them don't care for what they're packaging -
> they're only doing it for the experience - which means that they wont
> update the package, and in the next release (or sooner) it'll sit in the
> archive and rot, as no one cares about it.

The only advantages of packaging for Ubuntu instead of Debian I see are
that you get to visibly contribute to Ubuntu, perceivably improving your
"community kudos" and adding to your repertoire for use in a MOTU
application. Though I'm beginning to see this might be a bad idea. But
as I mentioned on this list a while ago, I think people wanting to
package for universe should be nudged in the direction of Debian first
anyway. I personally found it easier to get a new package into Debian
than into Ubuntu, presumably because Debian has a more tried-and-tested
process and a larger amount of potential sponsors. I can see the few
active MOTUs are rather stretched at the moment.

That said, I notice that $other_distro uses a minimal review checklist
for their reviews so that reviewers can paste the checklist in the
review bug and tack "fail" or "pass" next to each item. Making this
checklist available to new packagers gives them a convenient list of
stuff to check quickly before even thinking of asking for reviews.
Perhaps this idea would make the life of a MOTU a tiny bit simpler?

> I'd prefer to see people fixing bugs in *existing* packages.  The
> sponsorship queue is shorter, and it benefits more people.  When we have
> a huge number of bugs in universe, I cant see the point of adding more
> packages with bugs, which the original hopefuls won't fix, as they only
> did it for experience sake.

Couldn't have put it better myself. The amount of needs-packaging bugs
on launchpad is a tad unnerving, though.

--
Andy Price