Future of MOTU

[Brian J Mingus]

On Tue, Mar 23, 2010 at 2:45 PM, Benjamin Drung <bdrung at ubuntu.com> wrote:

> Am Dienstag, den 23.03.2010, 14:24 -0600 schrieb Brian J Mingus:
> >
> >
> > On Tue, Mar 23, 2010 at 2:12 PM, Elliot Murphy <elliot at canonical.com>
> > wrote:
> >         On Tue, Mar 23, 2010 at 2:27 PM, Johan De Taeye
> >         <johan_de_taeye at yahoo.com> wrote:
> >         >>>We get far more package submissions than we can review
> >         every cycle. I
> >         >>> generally recommend getting
> >         >>>your package into Debian and then it will be sync'ed into
> >         Ubuntu. There
> >         >>> are a lot more developers in Debian.
> >         > But, could this be documented?
> >         > When people submit their package they know what they are up
> >         to.
> >         > It'ld avoid people (like me) trying to learn the process,
> >         uploading their
> >         > package in good faith and getting (a bit) frustrated.
> >         > I fully understand and appreciate all the work the team is
> >         doing.
> >         > Just trying to be positive and see how things can be
> >         improved...
> >
> >
> >         As Scott has pointed out, it's a problem of having enough
> >         volunteers
> >         to do the work. I am trying to improve the situation
> >         personally by
> >         working with Debian teams instead of Ubuntu for my own
> >         packages that I
> >         want to get in, reviewing packages and giving advice now and
> >         then on
> >         REVU, and working towards becoming a MOTU myself, but it's
> >         slow going.
> >         The best way to improve is for more people to do the same.
> >
> >         Even if you are not yet MOTU, I think one of the best ways to
> >         learn is
> >         to review other peoples packages. I have learned many things
> >         to
> >         improve my own packages by carefully looking at other peoples
> >         packages, reading the existing reviews, and trying to see what
> >         things
> >         would need to be fixed before I would consider the package
> >         fine to
> >         upload. Doing code review is a really fantastic way to learn.
> >         --
> >         Elliot Murphy | https://launchpad.net/~statik/<https://launchpad.net/%7Estatik/>
> >
> >
> > This really just doesn't click for me. These are Masters of the
> > Universe after all. They know everything about creating packages and
> > they have a highly efficient and streamlined package testing paradigm.
> > They know what bugs in packages are and they know how to fix them more
> > quickly than anyone else. Why is there no one who oversees the MOTUs
> > (Master of the Masters of the Universe) and says "this package should
> > be in Universe" and they say "ok, I will spend the next couple of
> > hours getting it ready."
>
> Many MOTUs are busy with updating, syncing, merging packages and fixing
> bugs. Then there is the sponsors queue, which needs love too. I uploaded
> a few package from REVU. There were two ways to get my attention: Either
> someone ask in the #ubuntu-motu channel, when I had time for it or i
> searched the need-packaging bugs on Launchpad. Which package should I
> review? I sorted the need-packaging bugs by affected users and found
> openshot. I think that having a importance indicator would be a good
> idea. What do you think about promoting the use of "Affects me too" on
> Launchpad for that?
>
> BTW I sponsored only packages, where the packager worked on getting the
> package into Debian, too.
>
> --
> Benjamin Drung
> Ubuntu Developer (www.ubuntu.com) | Debian Maintainer (www.debian.org)
>
>
In my opinion the decision should be made not based on some advanced
philosophy concerning how many distributions the person tried to get the
package into, but rather the quality of the software and how much it would
improve Ubuntu. After the package gets into Ubuntu almost all of the work is
done for the folks who are experts at porting Ubuntu packages back into
Debian. It should not be the concern of people who write awesome software
and just want to make it available in the distribution they actually use.
The MOTUs have already raised the standard so high (you must admit there is
a lot of prerequisite knowledge for creating a high quality package) and
they are already so unavailable to provide assistance (meaning folks have to
figure it out themselves) that your Debian requirement can only be
considered completely unreasonable.
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