Focus of MOTU (Was: NEW Packages process)

[Michael Bienia]

On 2008-04-17 10:25:27 +0200, Stephan Hermann wrote:
> Priority 1a:
> 
> 	I think our main focus should still be to fix
> 	Universe/Multiverse packages for the actual development
> 	release. That means, merging, syncing, fixing packages which we
> 	are importing from Debian or from older times from apt-get.org.
> 
> 	This will eat most of our time during a release.

I see it the same way. We have already enough to do with the packages in
our archive and those uploaded to Debian (sync, merge) and I see no
reason to add even more packages to our workload. We already don't
manage to keep the packages uploaded through REVU uptodate (you will
easily find packages which were uploaded once and never again).
Therefore I don't concentrate to do reviews.

I'd even prefer if new MOTU contributors would start with syncs, (easy)
merges, bug fixing, etc. instead of packaging new software.


> Priority 5:
[...]
> 	Today, we need at least to look at two places, MoM+DaD, asking
> 	the old uploader, eventually waiting too long for an answer.
> 	This slows us down.

AFAIK DaD was introduced because MoM was missing the comment feature.
Now that MoM is open source, DaD should be merged with MoM.

> 	During Merging Time, it's important that we get hands on many
> 	packages as we can manage, and just fix them, or file a sync
> 	report for it. This gives us more time to fix stuff in the
> 	later stage of development.
> 	Communication is done via IRC and a MOTU should take care about
> 	the last uploaded packages he/she touched in the first place.
> 	When he/she's done with it, he/she can take whatever package
> 	is left, without further written or spoken permission of the
> 	last uploader. 
> 	IMHO this is the most important rule, nothing else.

Yes, but we still should avoid to do duplicate work given our
insufficient manpower.
It would be really bad to spend one or two hours on a bigger merge just
to see that someone else was 5 minutes faster.
We need a mechanism to "lock" merges so others know someone is working
on it and can select an other merge. And currently it is to ping the
last uploader.

Michael