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

[txwikinger]

Servus Daniel,

This topic seem to crop up for every UDS lately :-)

I remember having expressed my feelings already a couple of times about 
this, however, here we go again.

If you look at my wiki-page on Ubuntu, you will see that I originally 
stated my goal was to become a MOTU.
However, over the last 5 year, the goal post seem to have been moved 
constantly and a couple of life-changing
events in my life certainly give me more time for it.

Nevertheless, I have created/updated/maintained about 60 packages in 
that time. However, because of different reasons, I felt less and less 
compelled to pursue MOTU membership.

In some way, it seemed to develop more to be an award/trophy to get the 
"badge". I am not interested in that. The reason to be a MOTU for me is 
the responsibility/ability to be able to help, not to get another patch 
for the Ubuntu-Eagle-Scout Uniform. When I first got involved, people 
were invited to be MOTUs. I understand that that process was maybe not 
so objective, however, the way of application felt even less objective 
due to no public objective criteria.

Given, perception is subjective, and objective it may be different now, 
however, perception reality for whoever has the perception.

Furthermore, I worked often on KDE packages which have been in the main 
archive. Hence, MOTU would not really made a difference, and we often 
heard to rather become Kubuntu-devs than MOTUs. I also have to say that 
the workflow seemed more inclusive in the Kubuntu team, so even without 
upload rights, I was always able to contribute easily.

In addition, I have found I was able to contribute by using my own ppa. 
Due to this, it felt for the last couple of years a lot easier for me 
and my limited time, to work around the inability to upload as a MOTU, 
and instead of using time not available in my life to rather spend the 
time to be constructive in the areas I have access to.

Not every Ubuntu contributor has unlimited time available. So if you 
want to attract people like me, you might want to consider how to allow 
people to more efficiently be able to contribute. If I have to do 100s 
of packages in a couple of month to meet some criteria, it is not 
possible for me to meet.

Anyhow, just my 2cents... hope it helps,

Ralph (txwikinger)


On 12-04-19 10:44 AM, Daniel Holbach wrote:
> Hello everybody,
>
> with only a week to go until 12.04 is released, it might be a good time
> to think about what MOTU is to you and what you feel it should be in the
> next few releases.
>
> This team has been existing for as long as Ubuntu has been around and
> one thing we've been doing since the early days is: being there for new
> contributors and bringing them into the fold. In my mind this is (among
> many others of course) the most important thing MOTU has contributed to
> Ubuntu.
>
> Not limited to my personal assessment above, I'd still like to hear from
> you (no matter if you're a MOTU old-timer or a new contributor) is what
> do you feel we do well and what do you feel we should change?
>
> The feedback should be a good preparation for a MOTU session at UDS.
>
> I'm looking forward to your answers and thanks a lot for your great work
> on the team!
>
> Have a great day,
>   Daniel
>