REVU - Cleanup of the "Needs Review" section

[Joe Smith]

I think that as much as possible, we need to try to get packages into
Debian. Not only are we contributing back into their repositories, but as
James said, we make our lives much easier. I believe there are many in the
Ubuntu community that feel more comfortable setting up packages for
inclusion in Ubuntu as opposed to Debian, but that may be because they just
aren't really aware of the Debian process.

In terms of the packages we currently have in REVU, maybe a comment asking
"Are you still around to maintain this package?" or "Would this still be a
valuable contribution to the community?" would help sort things out. There
may be a package from months ago that would greatly benefit the community,
and one that is a week old may only be used by one user. We need something
to help whittle down the number of packages in REVU, but I don't think time
would be the best way.

Joe Smith
Student Network Technician
Chapman University IS&T


On Sun, Nov 2, 2008 at 11:46 AM, James Westby
<jw+debian at jameswestby.net<jw%2Bdebian at jameswestby.net>
> wrote:

> On Sun, 2008-11-02 at 18:49 +0100, Reinhard Tartler wrote:
> > I think this proposal is even more agressive and unfriendly to
> > newcomers
> > than Siegfried's original one.
> >
> > I translate it as: "We're sorry but we do not care about your package
> > this time. Please try again next time, we'll see if we care about it
> > in
> > 3 months".
> >
> > Of course we can present it friendlier, but the general message I
> > would
> > get of it would remain.
>
> I agree, but I'm not entirely sure what the problem with this would
> be; isn't that exactly the situation we have?
>
> One characterisation of the original proposal would be "we're not
> going to review your package right now as it needs an entirely
> trivial change". It won't always be entirely trivial, but will for
> the most part.
>
> While it would weed out those packages where the packager no longer
> cares, my worry is that it leaves a bad taste in the mouth for those
> who do still care and are really keen to have their package in Ubuntu,
> and they are exactly the people we should be encouraging. Why not
> state the issue in terms that lets them understand the purpose.
>
> > I think the key problem we are trying to solve here is prioritisation.
> > Sorting out packages that the packager no longer cares for is IMO a good
> > thing, and Siegfried's proposal catches them.
>
> Yes, but I feel it conflates this with rather a trivial thing in the
> package. If all we want is some action from the packager to say that
> they are still interested then why not just do something as simple as
> add a button to the page for them to assert that?
>
> >  Perhaps we can or should
> > add more ways to prioritise packages on REVU. Perhaps by linking
> > packages to brainstorm ideas and comparing votes there.
>
> I had a similar thought. The number of users that want a package
> isn't going to the be a complete measure, but initial prioritisation
> based on that could be a good start.
>
>
> I guess this proposal was trying to do more than just clean up the list,
> I was trying to change expectations in the new package process.
>
> We could go through the list right now, starting from the oldest
> packages and give a real review of the problems in every package, not
> just the change to "jaunty", moving them to the "Needs work" state.
> This would achieve what you want.
>
> However, we would then have all the packages fixed and ready for
> inclusion, but I am not sure that we want them all in. I know there
> are people who support having everything packaged and included, but
> I generally don't fall in to this camp. When we take a package
> that is not in Debian we take on more of a commitment, and I fear
> that this is not always justified. I would guess that many of those
> packages are not well maintained, and so this gives a bad experience for
> our users.
>
> I have tried in this thread to try and steer things such that when we
> make this commitment it is a net win for the distribution, as we would
> be doing it for packages that are truly worthwhile. I imagine that
> not everyone agrees with me on this point though.
>
> Thanks,
>
> James
>
>
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