Process for adding new members?

[Scott Kitterman]

On Thursday, October 28, 2010 02:28:00 pm Iulian Udrea wrote:
> On 28 October 2010 15:26, Robbie Williamson <robbie at ubuntu.com> wrote:
> > I had a conversation today with ScottK about growing the Ubuntu Release
> > team and how we add members.  He gave me some background on how it was
> > when MOTU was separate, and I think along those lines we could setup a
> > system whereby an existing member sponsors an application and we vote as
> > a team.  Thoughts/Suggestions?
> 
> Alrighty.  What was the conclusion?  Do we need to grow the team or not?  I
> believe
> the answer to this question should have been written before thinking
> about the process
> of adding new members to the team.  If the answer is positive then I think
> the process
> that Robbie is talking about is quite good.

I don't know that we have a final conclusion.  I certainly think we could have 
used more manpower in the last release.  We need to see how people's 
availability in this cycle is likely to be and make an assessment.

Regardless of when we need more people, I think we need to decide how we are 
going to decide.

> My thought about this is that we indeed need a couple of more members.  I'm
> thinking
> of Scott (who is just a volunteer) as two persons in the release team.  I
> mean, he is
> doing loads of work and I am very grateful to him and I would like to share
> this with him
> when I have the opportunity.  Anyway, the point is that some of us (as in
> me:)) sometimes
> don't have the time to deal with the huge number of requests we're getting
> every day. So,
> that being said, it is always good to have others who can back us up when
> we're missing.

I was fortunate in this last cycle to be in a position to invest a lot of time 
in release work.  I expect it will be less in Natty both due to having less 
time for Ubuntu in general and due to anticipating needing to put a fair 
amount of time into the Python 2.7 transition and some other things.

I would like to see an additional person who's oriented on the unseeded 
packages (e.g. Universe/Multiverse) on the team, but that's just my 
perspective.

Scott K