What do you want MOTU to be in Q, R and S?

[Benjamin Kerensa]

On 05/03/2012 05:05 PM, Stefano Rivera wrote:
> Hi Andrew (2012.05.03_20:59:19_+0200)
>> It's that over the past few cycles the team has dwindled to the point
>> where it is hard to see what it even does. Much of this is of course
>> due to many of MOTU's traditional responsibilities having been
>> superseeded by newer institutions and norms:
>> archive-reorg/package-sets, the Developer Membership Board, a stronger
>> emphasis new packages going through Debian. A lot of this is "a good
>> thing," but I feel that we've lost some of the social cohesion that
>> the team used to bring to Ubuntu development.
> I agree with that reasoning. I don't think we have much of a team
> identity, rather than just being a bunch of people who care about
> unseeded.
>
> It feels wrong to have to attract members by quilting them into helping
> us, or make helping us a pre-requisite for them getting things done.
> But I don't know how we should attract the type of people who enjoy
> archive gardening.
>
> Personally, my catalyst for MOTUing was wanting to get a package into
> Ubuntu in a hurry before lucid released. It went through Debian, but
> wanted to make sure I could help it along as much as possible in Ubuntu,
> as a freeze was imminent.  So I sat down and learned how to do some MOTU
> things, did a few merges, and discovered this was a whole lot of fun.
>
>> As Daniel mentioned, one of the most important contributions of this
>> team has been bringing new contributors into the fold.
> I like to think I spend a fair bit of time on this, and when it comes to
> chatting, I think most of us do. When people make the effort to get
> involved, we're quite good at this. The IRC channels are very friendly,
> and the patch pilots (not that MOTU can claim credit here) are making
> sure everything gets reviewed soonish.  Sure, not everyone who does some
> uploads sticks around, but I assume some people find it's not their
> thing.
>
> I think the problem is that we aren't getting that many new faces.
> Even when do get people saying they want to help, most of the time, we
> don't have a good project for them. Without a personal motivation to get
> a new package in or something like that, I think it's harder to find the
> energy to get into it.
>
>> While things like per-package upload rights are great for getting
>> contributors with a very narrow interest to help directly in Ubuntu,
>> in the past I think there was some value to the social pressure to
>> help with package outside your specific interest in order to get
>> upload rights.
> We (the DMB) do apply some pressure on PPU applicants, but by the time
> they've got to us, it's too late the to persuade them that they should
> become MOTUs. And yes, PPU serves a purpose, many of them probably
> shouldn't become MOTUs.
>
>>  * Maintaining packages that do not belong in any package-sets.
>>  * Providing guidance and training for new generalist developers.
>>  * Extended Quality Assurance functions.
>>
>> Are we living up to this mission? Does this still make sense for us?
>> Has the MOTU simply out lived its usefulness?
> I think that's a fairly good description of us these days.
>
>> I haven't found a blueprint for this yet. Does it exist yet, or should
>> I file one?
> Not as far as I know, please do.
>
> If we didn't have a MOTU session, it'd be a sign that it's all over.
> Then again, a sad MOTU session isn't much better :/
>
> SR
>
I hope to apply for MOTU during the Q-Cycle and my motivation is in fact
to help with
some of the "gardening" that Stefano speaks of along with getting more
needs-packaging
work done. I think it would also be interesting to mentor other
individuals interested in the
path to becoming a MOTU.

I'm still waiting for the right opportunity to apply but maybe this
cycle maybe next... I guess
I will know when the time is right but I would love to be apart of the
group and helping it evolve.