Fast-track mentoring for lupine_85 and pricechild

[Scott Kitterman]

On Saturday 17 March 2007 10:20, Mark Shuttleworth wrote:
> Stefan Potyra wrote:
> > Hi Mark,
> >
> > On Saturday 17 March 2007 01:16:27 Mark Shuttleworth wrote:
> >> Hi MOTU-Council
> >>
> >> I'm writing to request that the MOTU fast-track lupine_85 and
> >> pricechild, who maintain Beryl packages for Ubuntu in the
> >> beryl-project.org repository, into the MOTU team. I think it would be
> >> very useful to have the upstreams uploading directly to Ubuntu, so we
> >> can provide them with a mechanism to get faster feedback on Beryl which
> >> might be in main for Feisty+1.
> >>
> >> If they are willing initially to limit their uploads to Beryl packages
> >> (and related, themes and plugins), could we put them straight into the
> >> team? Once they are established in terms of policies and procedures, we
> >> can lift that restriction and invite them to upload with the same
> >> freedom of anyone else in MOTU.
> >>
> >> Thoughts?
> >
> > to be honest, I'd like some feedback from MOTU on this topic first, thus
> > I'm raising it on ubuntu-motu-ml. Can we move the discussion there?
>
> Certainly - that's a good idea.
>
> In essence I think it's worth fast-tracking MOTU membership when someone
> is:
>
>  * a strong part of upstream, so likely to have good knowledge of the
> package and how it should best be integrated into the distro
>  * has some packaging experience, or is on a team which has people with
> good packaging experience. In this case, Lupine_85 is producing good
> quality Beryl packages already, and he and PriceChild are keen to get
> those widely tested.
>
> It would be great if the MOTU council could codify that as a standard
> policy!
>
> Mark

Speaking as a relative newcomer (and a non-MOTU), I think this sets a 
dangerous precedent.  I went back and looked and I have brought eight either 
new packages or significantly updated packages to Feisty.  For seven of the 
eight, I believe that I meet the above criteria.

As I understand it, Universe is group maintained by MOTU (and non-MOTUs like 
myself).  What this proposal would do is create a new sub-class of people 
with MOTU like rights, but only for specific packages.  This would undermine 
the group maintenance aspect of Universe.  In time, I predict it would pretty 
well do it in.  Once you start down this path, others will want it too.

Additionally, I believe it solves a non-problem.  When I have had good 
packages to upload, the existing REVU process for non-MOTUs has generally 
cost me only a day or two when I was available to be up on IRC and work with 
the MOTU community.

As long as the people bringing Beryl packages to Universe are willing to work 
with the exisitng MOTUs, it really isn't necessary for the to be MOTUs.

I would imagine that if I had worked very hard to become a MOTU it would be 
incredibly de-motivating to see that same achievement given away to someone 
who hadn't earned it.  

Finally, I went and looked and I did not see any Beryl packages on REVU 
(current or archived) or at least no packages with the name beryl in them.  
If there were Beryl packages sitting there with no action for a long time, 
then this might be something worth considering.

Scott K