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Salvo Tomaselli | 1 Jun 2012 01:47
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Re: Orphaning php-codesniffer, then take it over by the PHP PEAR team

> Jonas, I think we all agree that the Maintainer should Maintain
> whatever he signed up to. Non-Debian people have the right to maintain
> packages through a sponsor, and they are encouraged to. And they are
> encouraged to look for a different sponsor if their current one stops
> being responsive, and all that.
> 
> However, we cannot expect them to remain active and interested
> forever.
But you can safely assume that a DD will remain interested in debian forever? 
Aren't DD common human beings after all? (seems somebody would disagree)

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Salvo Tomaselli
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Charles Plessy | 1 Jun 2012 02:00
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Re: Orphaning php-codesniffer, then take it over by the PHP PEAR team

Le Fri, Jun 01, 2012 at 01:47:07AM +0200, Salvo Tomaselli a écrit :
> > Jonas, I think we all agree that the Maintainer should Maintain
> > whatever he signed up to. Non-Debian people have the right to maintain
> > packages through a sponsor, and they are encouraged to. And they are
> > encouraged to look for a different sponsor if their current one stops
> > being responsive, and all that.
> > 
> > However, we cannot expect them to remain active and interested
> > forever.
> But you can safely assume that a DD will remain interested in debian forever? 
> Aren't DD common human beings after all? (seems somebody would disagree)

Hi all,

Raphaël has interesting propositions somewhat related to matter in DEP-2.

  http://dep.debian.net/deps/dep2/

In particular, I think that we would benefit of a way to better describe the
maintainer's involvement and expectations, as it would help to chose the best
action to take when he does not give signs of activity in Debian for a long
time and becomes unreachable without having managed to drop a message about
this (which I think is an important thing to do when possible).

  http://dep.debian.net/deps/dep2/

There was some discussion about this DEP in january on debian-qa <at> l.d.o.  I do
not remember if it was discussed there, but I think that having expiration
dates to the statements (like “I packaged it because I use it daily”) would
help keeping the information accurate.
(Continue reading)

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wnpp | 1 Jun 2012 02:26
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Work-needing packages report for Jun 1, 2012

The following is a listing of packages for which help has been requested
through the WNPP (Work-Needing and Prospective Packages) system in the
last week.

Total number of orphaned packages: 454 (new: 22)
Total number of packages offered up for adoption: 156 (new: 7)
Total number of packages requested help for: 59 (new: 0)

Please refer to http://www.debian.org/devel/wnpp/ for more information.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

The following packages have been orphaned:

   analog (#674866), orphaned 3 days ago
     Description: web server log analyzer
     Installations reported by Popcon: 18472

   autogen (#674867), orphaned 3 days ago
     Description: automated text file generator
     Installations reported by Popcon: 33777

   delta (#674869), orphaned 3 days ago
     Description: Heuristic minimizer of interesting files
     Installations reported by Popcon: 41

   devil (#674868), orphaned 3 days ago
     Description: Cross-platform image loading and manipulation toolkit
     Installations reported by Popcon: 1629
(Continue reading)

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Bart Martens | 1 Jun 2012 06:29
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Re: pre-MIA quest for Patrick Winnertz (winnie-at-d.o)

On Thu, May 31, 2012 at 09:19:37PM +0200, Mike Gabriel wrote:
> Dear all,
> 
> I have been trying to contact Patrick Winnertz (winnie-at-d.o). I
> would like to see iTalc in Debian upgraded to 2.0

Relevant bug report from 3 September 2011:
http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=640200

> but Patrick is
> neither replying to contact attempts via mail (Debian Edu mailing
> list, directly), nor to contact attempts via IRC. My first attempt
> to reach  him is about 3-4 weeks ago.

That is a good reason to have a look at the MIA database.

Recent upload:
http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-changes/2012/04/msg01990.html

Recent message on list:
http://lists.debian.org/debian-wnpp/2012/05/msg00180.html

So Patrick Winnertz is not MIA.

> 
> Earlier this year Patrick handed over the maintenance of slbackup /
> slbackup-php to me. This last contact was via IRC.
> 
> Has anyone heard from him, recently? If so, can you give him note to
> get in contact with me (or the Debian Edu team)?
(Continue reading)

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Svante Signell | 1 Jun 2012 09:16
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Re: Packaging a new release of released SW, not considered by the DM?

On Thu, 2012-05-31 at 17:40 -0500, Gunnar Wolf wrote:
> Svante Signell dijo [Thu, May 31, 2012 at 11:45:13PM +0200]:
> > > It's *usually* not what you want to do. There are several cases where
> > > different versions of the same program are available in Debian, and I
> > > am unfamiliar with the case at hand, but it's usually where a specific
> > > older version of a package is depended upon by large amounts of
> > > software, and changes in new versions are not compatible. They often
> > > bring in maintenance hell issues.

One example is to upload a new release to experimental, not sid! Being
there does not automatically make it progress to sid, tesing and stable
does it?

> > > In this case, you should discuss with the DM about the "whatever
> > > reason" you mention, maybe bring it up here (so it gets wider exposure
> > > and more informed people get to have a say). You can ultimately ask
> > > the Technical Committee, but that's a venue of action very seldom
> > > taken (and I think that even "very seldom" might be an overstatement).

Well the DM is *non-responsive*, what to do?

> > Thank you for your time,
> > 
> > Fortunately, I'm not a hurd porter any longer an whatever you choose to
> > do it is not longer my business. Thank you for your attention
> 
> Huh‽
> 
> Well, the original question I replied to was posted by you... I fail
> to understand your answer. There was no mention of any specific
(Continue reading)

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Jonas Smedegaard | 1 Jun 2012 09:59
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Maintainer responsible for or only doing maintenance?

On 12-05-31 at 06:08pm, Holger Levsen wrote:
> On Donnerstag, 31. Mai 2012, Jonas Smedegaard wrote:
> > You still avoid my question: What does "Maintainer:" mean?
>
> why do you ask rhetoric questions? It's defined in policy and you know 
> it. So whats the point?

Context of my question is Bernd arguing that responsibility lies at the 
uploader, not only for the contents of the upload but also for its 
future maintenance.

My point is that either we are all wasting our time declaring a
meaningless "Maintainer:" control field, or Bernd is wrong and the
uploader responsibility is for the contents of the upload - which
includes stating who is then to be held responsible for the
maintainance.

In my interpretation, maintainer is expected to act responsibly.

Uploader is expected to act responsibly too: The act of uploading covers 
ensuring the vailidy of statements in the packaging (which is especially 
tricky for sponsoring of work outside our Web of Trust).  The act of 
uploading does *not* IMO cover ongoing maintenance of the package.

But you are right, let's simply look at Policy. I found this at §3.3:

> The maintainer is responsible for maintaining the Debian packaging 
> files, evaluating and responding appropriately to reported bugs, 
> uploading new versions of the package (either directly or through a 
> sponsor), ensuring that the package is placed in the appropriate
(Continue reading)

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Dominique Dumont | 1 Jun 2012 10:28
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Re: Packaging a new release of released SW, not considered by the DM?

On Friday 01 June 2012 09:16:35 Svante Signell wrote:
> Regarding DMs the non-responsiveness of some of them is frustrating,
> they don't bother to comment on any of the bug reports. Is that the
> way a DM is supposed to work? 

I don't think so.

> And with the recent discussions on d-devel
> about hijacking etc it seems that if you are a DM for a package is set
> in stone *forever*.

There's a middle ground between hijacking and letting a package rot: Debian 
developers reference provides instructions to deal with "inactive 
and/or unreachable maintainers" [1]. I know from experience that 
following this process is an exercice is patience, but it's the 
best way to deal with maintainers which may be distracted by, well, 
real life events.

> I really wonder if Debian is for me at all. There are other free
> software distributions, Ubuntu, Redhat Fedora, Mandriva, etc. I've been
> contributing there before. And there are even really free software
> distributions. So why stick to Debian?

Heh, I could give you an answer, but it would be valid only for me ;-)

All the best

[1] http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/developers-reference/beyond-pkging.html#mia-qa

--

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Jonas Smedegaard | 1 Jun 2012 11:12
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Re: Packaging a new release of released SW, not considered by the DM?

Hi Svante,

On 12-06-01 at 09:16am, Svante Signell wrote:
> Regarding DMs the non-responsiveness of *some* of them is frustrating, 
> they don't bother to comment on _any_ of the bug reports. Is that the 
> way a DM is supposed to work? And with the recent discussions on 
> d-devel about hijacking etc it seems that if you are a DM for a 
> package is set in stone *forever*.

The general rule is that when you are maintainer for a package, you stay 
maintainer.

...but maintainer role is not "forever", though.  But Debian praise 
stability and reliability, and both are generally helped when you are 
not "shopping around" but devote time to and grow detailed knowledge 
about specific pieces over longer time.

...but Debian rules are not set in stone, either¹. Note how I said 
"generally" several times above. What you experience at the mailinglist 
is discussing what is facts *today*, both to hold each other to an 
agreed consensus, and to consider if relevant to change to a different 
(hopefully better) consensus in the future.

Hope that helped you gain interest in Debian :-)

 - Jonas

P.S.

I am not _always_ yelling and nitpicking.  At least that's what Siri (my
(Continue reading)

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Russ Allbery | 1 Jun 2012 11:19
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Re: Maintainer responsible for or only doing maintenance?

Jonas Smedegaard <dr <at> jones.dk> writes:

> My point is that either we are all wasting our time declaring a
> meaningless "Maintainer:" control field, or Bernd is wrong and the
> uploader responsibility is for the contents of the upload - which
> includes stating who is then to be held responsible for the
> maintainance.

> In my interpretation, maintainer is expected to act responsibly.

I think this is too stark, or at least I feel like my personal position on
this is part of an excluded middle.

For the specific case of sponsored packages, for exactly the reasons that
you have argued previously on this thread, we know that the package
maintainer's affiliation with (and often committment to) Debian may not be
as strong as the Debian Developer who is sponsoring the package.
Therefore, in the specific case of sponsored packages, while the package
maintainer is still responsible, we ask the sponsor to exercise some
oversight over that responsibility and be prepared to step in if the
maintainer is not fulfilling that responsibility for whatever reason.

I think we also, at least informally, recognize the sponsor has having
more control over the package than they normally would when they're not
the maintainer, precisely because with repsonsibility should come the
power to exercise that responsibility.

I don't know if this is all explicitly written down anywhere, but it's
certainly my feel of the general consensus and social expectations of the
people who discuss this sort of thing on debian-mentors.
(Continue reading)

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Petter Reinholdtsen | 1 Jun 2012 11:21

Re: Maintainer responsible for or only doing maintenance?


[Jonas Smedegaard]
> Is my point clear now (even if is may disagree with my reasoning)?

I find your point quite clear, but suspect you misunderstood those
claiming the sponsor have responsibilities regarding package
maintenance.

To me it is obvious that the sponsor is also responsible for a
package, when the maintainer become unresponsive or missing.  When the
maintainer is active and available, the sponsor do not have to step in
and the responsibility is "sleeping". :)

The maintainer is responsible in the day to day maintenance, but when
I sponsor packages I also keep in mind that I might end up having to
care about the package some time in the future if the listed
maintainer looses interest or disappears for other reasons.

You seem to argue that this should not be the case.  Is this because
of your current sponsor practice, or is there some other experience
behind your view on the responsibilities of a package sponsor in
Debian?
--

-- 
Happy hacking
Petter Reinholdtsen
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Gmane