From: "Michael Schwendt" <mschwendt(a)gmail.com>
To: devel(a)lists.fedoraproject.org
Sent: Thursday, April 26, 2012 1:01:51 PM
Subject: Re: Proposal for revitalizing the sponsorship process for packaging
On Wed, 25 Apr 2012 17:03:25 -0500, JLTI (Jason) wrote:
> For a while now I have been working on a proposal for some changes
> to
> both the way we elevate packagers to sponsors and what (to a small
> extent) sponsors actually do. Please note that this is not a
> proposal
> for any changes to how people are made members of the packager
> group in
> the first place and does not change the privileges of existing
> sponsors.
>
> My proposal is at
>
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/User:Tibbs/RevitalizingSponsorshipProposal
>
> I've run this by FESCo, whose response was favorable, so I'm
> sending
> this to a larger audience. Please let me know what you think.
There are a few unfortunate sections in the first paragraph already:
| users have to go through an almost endless set of steps (which also
| needs revision, but that's another topic)
Compared with a few years ago there are many newbie-packagers, who
apparently are not interested in the 'Packaging' related Wiki pages
and
not in the 'ReviewGuidelines' either.
Such package[r]s in the review queue sit and wait for a reviewer to
do
__all__ the work including most basic tasks like running rpmlint or
running a test-build. And that inspite of the Wiki documents being
detailed and helpful enough nowadays ... compared with the brief
QACheckList from ancient times. Things commented on by reviewers
often are
applied to a spec file only reluctantly, without proper/clear
acknowledgement. A single "okay, I see" or "that makes sense" often
would
make a difference.
With regard to 'mentoring', I favour people, who show better
communication
skills and who are more responsive. I appreciate feedback, even if
somebody disagrees and wants to discuss the guidelines instead of
simply
applying a spec file fix. Worse, however, are those who start with
Fedora
criticism in either bugzilla or private mail (such as considering the
guidelines as needless bureaucracy and finding fool language for that
even). A negative point of view related to how Fedora does something
is
not motivating potential sponsors.
A few years ago, when I received private mail from somebody about
sponsorship, my reply would result in either a longer thread where to
discuss something or in a short acknowledgement and work move into
the review request. Nowadays, private mail mentions the wish to be
sponsored, but communication stops at that point because pointing
at the PackageMaintainers Wiki entry page apparently is considered
too much homework for the people who mail me.
| and then pin their hopes on a review ticket that, due to an
| insufficient
| number of active sponsors, may not get looked at in a reasonable
| amount
| of time.
It's disappointing to see that your "activity report" does not cover
activity in the review queue. I may be one of those, who has not
sponsored
anyone in the past year, but I post helpful (and detailed) review
comments
regularly and encounter inactive package submitters both in the
normal
queue and in the needsponsor queue. In the same way packagers cannot
guarantee to return with a reply in less than 1-3 months, I cannot
guarantee sponsoring somebody already with only a _single_ submitted
package,
where I have had to point at the Packaging Documentation multiple
times.
I absolutely agree with this one. Not to mention that some of us might not do
reviews/sponsorship at the same pace we do that in the past we are still very active in
helping people doing there reviews, submit packages, update them through other channels -
irc, mails, etc. And this is exactly what a sponsor is supposed to do. So this formal
requirements are not correct. If someone wants to speed up the review process - we have to
pay our technical debt. A gerrit like solution which checks the source rpm, build it, run
rpmlint and add this as comments automatically so reviewers can fix their stuff prior to
talking to a sponsor. And having an automated tool is great as people can not argue with
it.
Alex
Also, I think it has become more important to be more careful about
who to
sponsor, because we are facing a growing number of orphans due to
packagers leaving the project without notice, as well as packagers
who
grab N>1 packages in pkgdb without actually handling them properly in
bugzilla (if at all).
| Make some criteria that sponsors need to meet if they wish to
| remain sponsors.
Forcing sponsors to fulfill such criteria is the wrong way IMO. It
may
result in even more blanket-approval sponsorships.
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