contributions

[Scott Kitterman]

On Monday 12 May 2008 20:51, Nicolas Valcarcel wrote:
> Hi,
>     Since hardy i have notice that some times contributions are not taking
> into account, mostly on merges. For MOTUs and core devels is not needed to
> file a bug since it's only needed to upload the package, but some times, a
> contributor, which need to file a bug, upload his debdiff and ask for
> sponsorship, make the work for nothing, becase one developer (no one in
> special) work on that merge and upload it. I think is not fair, and
> discourage for new contributor, so i think it lack for a common process
> where this things doesn't happen.

I appreciate your problem.  I remember such things happening in the past too.  
It's unfortunate when such things happen, but I don't know what can be done 
to prevent it completely.  MOTU are supposed to check bugs when they do a 
merge.

Ideally we'll have the new merged (pun intended) MoM and DaD up soon so there 
is one place to go for merge information that can include comments about what 
people are working on.  That should help too.

From our IRC discussion, I gather you had discussed the merge with the 
previous uploader, but that the MOTU that uploaded his own merge (apparently) 
did not.  While there is no rule requiring people to check with the last 
uploader, I still think it is generally a good idea (particularly early in 
the release cycle when there is no great rush to get merges uploaded).  That 
might have avoided the problem in this case.

I think we have sufficient process in place (MOTU should check bugs before 
uploading a merge to see if there are other fixes that should be included) or 
coming (single source of merge information with comments) to minimize this 
problem.  I don't think we'll ever eliminate it completely.

Scott K