Focus of MOTU (Was: NEW Packages process)

[Stephan Hermann]

Moins,

On Thu, 17 Apr 2008 23:02:17 +0200
Michael Bienia <michael at vorlon.ping.de> wrote:

> 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.

Yes, most of the time I don't spend time on reviews, too, only when I
know the guy who wants to add a package and I know that the software is
valuable.

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

Agreed....

> > 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.

Well, I don't want to look at two places in general for one work.

> 
> > 	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.

Yes...when you can get hands on the last uploader...

Ad least adding a lock checkbox on a website should be enough...where
do we get the source of MoM now?

Regards,

\sh