Fast-track mentoring for lupine_85 and pricechild

[Stefan Potyra]

Hi,

(dropping motu-council list, as it's now on ubuntu-motu ml).

On Saturday 17 March 2007 15:20:15 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!
>

For the ml readers: there was some discussion with Mark on #ubuntu-motu now, 
so please look at the logs[1]. Mark also said there:
04:47	sabdfl	i'm asking that we create a process for fast-track with limited 
upload
04:47	sabdfl	i will get LP to support this so we can enforce it, initially we 
would need to do it on [trust]

Here's what I think:
Good upstream integration is a very good thing for ubuntu, which should always 
get honoured. 
Limited upload rights won't imo solve the problem of better upstream 
integration per se. It can be a good tool to help with the problem, but it 
won't magically solve it.
Also creating a sidepath for motu-ship has the risk to demotivate people who 
did it "the hard way", however this was raised pretty good by Scott already, 
so I don't go into detail here.

Also for the current applications to MC, I guess being upstream would also get 
additional bonus points, as being a DD would. So I don't see the need to 
create a sidepath to become MOTU.

Nonetheless having upload rights for a limited number of packages might indeed 
be a good idea, given that we somehow make sure to have the people also 
integrated into the ubuntu community, which is the tricky part.

My idea right now to get this into shape would be s.th. like the following 
(this is really just a rough idea, please don't see this as a elaborate 
proposal yet):

1.) upstream packagers should start with a mentor. The mentor will take full 
responsibility for the packages during the whole process.

2.) initially the mentor takes care for sponsoring packages, until he thinks 
that upstream can do uploads for the given packages on his own.

3.) The mentor calls MC to grant him restricted upload rights for a number of 
p. MC will nod this through and forwards it to TB. (or the mentor directly 
contacts TB, maybe that's easier since the mentor will still be responsible 
for what upstream uploads then on his own). Uploads right will be limited to 
a short term (maybe 2 month?). The mentor will still watch then what upstream 
uploads, maybe not that deeply but he'll still be the one who would be 
responsible for fixing things resulting from bad uploads.

Not quite sure what then should happen:

a) after the initial upload rights have timed out, they can not be renewed, 
because upstream should by that time have become a full-fledged MOTU.

or b) after the initial upload rights have timed out, there will be a longer 
check from MC to grant upload rights to upstream for the limited set of 
packages for a reasonable large period of time. From that point in time the 
mentor would be relieved from his duties.

optional 4.)
upstream packagers will become MOTUs with the normal process, which however 
won't be really hard then because they can show what packages they all 
uploaded so far :).

What do you think?

Cheers,
  Stefan.
--
[1]: http://people.ubuntu.com/~fabbione/irclogs/
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