[gentoo-dev] [RFC]: Proxy-maintainer project

[gentoo-dev] [RFC]: Proxy-maintainer project

[Markos Chandras]

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Dear fellow developers,

A new project is about to start so I am requesting your feedback

The primary goal of the Proxy Maintainers[1] project is to create and maintain 
relationships between developers and users in order to ensure packages in the 
Gentoo tree stay up to date. This involves a few main tasks: 


List Interested Developers who are interested in being Commiters. 
Recruit Interested Users for Proxy Maintainers. 
Commiter/Proxy Maintainer Training. 
Maintain a list of pairings between Commiters/Proxy Maintainers.

Users who are willing to take care of a package will contact the developer who 
is interesting in the respective category. The developer and the user will 
work on the ebuild before they commit it to portage tree.

I kinda need some feedback wrt the following topics:

1) Should we use a new overlay? A new branch on sunrise? or work ebuilds in 
Gentoo bugzilla?I think the latter is the best
2) I think an email alias is not needed We can "monitor" maintainer-wanted/-
needed alias if needed. What do you think?
3) Maybe a new KEYWORD needs to be added on bugzilla so ppl get informed that 
the specific bug is already taking by another developer and that somebody is 
working on it. So marking a bug with a keyword e.g. "PROXY" might be useful.

Goals:
Well, apparently the main goal is to extend what we already do on Sunrise. 
Pick up interesting packages without the need to maintain them actively.We 
will only be a "proxy" between portage and users. I think this is a good way 
to attract new developers who will get excited seeing their ebuilds going 
directly to portage tree, plus an excellent way to pick up important packages 
from the huge maintainer-wanted list which is getting bigger and bigger every 
day. I know there are active users who have a significant ebuild knowledge and 
this is a good way to  enforce their skills and motivate them.

Gentoo has a powerful user base and we should take advantage of it

Comments?

[1]http://dev.gentoo.org/~hwoarang/proxy/
-- 
Markos Chandras (hwoarang)
Gentoo Linux Developer
Web: http://hwoarang.silverarrow.org

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Re: [gentoo-dev] [RFC]: Proxy-maintainer project

[Alexis Ballier]

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Hey,

IMHO, [1] is not clear if you don't already know what proxy
maintainance is :)

> 1) Should we use a new overlay? A new branch on sunrise? or work
> ebuilds in Gentoo bugzilla?I think the latter is the best

usually i use bugzilla at first then the good old mail vcs :)

> 2) I think an email alias is not needed We can "monitor"
> maintainer-wanted/- needed alias if needed. What do you think?

maybe it'd be nice to have one, see later

> 3) Maybe a new KEYWORD needs to be added on bugzilla so ppl get
> informed that the specific bug is already taking by another developer
> and that somebody is working on it. So marking a bug with a keyword
> e.g. "PROXY" might be useful.

4) add a keyword in bugzilla for users to specify they are willing to
be proxy maintainers (that's where a mail alias could be useful)


Alexis.

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Re: [gentoo-dev] [RFC]: Proxy-maintainer project

[Sébastien Fabbro]

On Thursday 18 March, Markos Chandras wrote:

> 1) Should we use a new overlay? A new branch on sunrise? or work
> ebuilds in Gentoo bugzilla?I think the latter is the best
> 2) I think an email alias is not needed We can "monitor"
> maintainer-wanted/- needed alias if needed. What do you think?
> 3) Maybe a new KEYWORD needs to be added on bugzilla so ppl get
> informed that the specific bug is already taking by another developer
> and that somebody is working on it. So marking a bug with a keyword
> e.g. "PROXY" might be useful.

0) Switch portage cvs tree to multiple git ones.

Sebastien

Re: [gentoo-dev] [RFC]: Proxy-maintainer project

[Patrick Lauer]

On 03/18/10 18:24, Sébastien Fabbro wrote:
> On Thursday 18 March, Markos Chandras wrote:
> 
>> 1) Should we use a new overlay? A new branch on sunrise? or work
>> ebuilds in Gentoo bugzilla?I think the latter is the best
>> 2) I think an email alias is not needed We can "monitor"
>> maintainer-wanted/- needed alias if needed. What do you think?
>> 3) Maybe a new KEYWORD needs to be added on bugzilla so ppl get
>> informed that the specific bug is already taking by another developer
>> and that somebody is working on it. So marking a bug with a keyword
>> e.g. "PROXY" might be useful.
> 
> 0) Switch portage cvs tree to
Sigh ... well, if "everyone" demands that ...

>multiple
... no, that's just silly. One tree to rule them all - we're even
folding the changes from the prefix project back in. Please don't
complexify things so they have enough Design ...

> git ones.
or something equivalent

Re: [gentoo-dev] [RFC]: Proxy-maintainer project

[justin]

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On 18/03/10 18:24, Sébastien Fabbro wrote:
> On Thursday 18 March, Markos Chandras wrote:
> 
>> 1) Should we use a new overlay? A new branch on sunrise? or work
>> ebuilds in Gentoo bugzilla?I think the latter is the best
>> 2) I think an email alias is not needed We can "monitor"
>> maintainer-wanted/- needed alias if needed. What do you think?
>> 3) Maybe a new KEYWORD needs to be added on bugzilla so ppl get
>> informed that the specific bug is already taking by another developer
>> and that somebody is working on it. So marking a bug with a keyword
>> e.g. "PROXY" might be useful.
> 
> 0) Switch portage cvs tree to multiple git ones.

I take one, too.


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Re: [gentoo-dev] [RFC]: Proxy-maintainer project

[Thomas Sachau]

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On 03/18/2010 05:29 PM, Markos Chandras wrote:
> Dear fellow developers,
> 
> A new project is about to start so I am requesting your feedback
> 
> The primary goal of the Proxy Maintainers[1] project is to create and maintain 
> relationships between developers and users in order to ensure packages in the 
> Gentoo tree stay up to date. This involves a few main tasks:

Also it is a nice idea, i dont think, it will help Gentoo in the longer term. As i can see with the
Sunrise project, most users only want to get their ebuild initially into portage/sunrise. They also
listen to suggestions, improve their code and read a document to get access. But in most cases, they
only do the initial commit or initial commit+some version bumps before they leave again and the
ebuild is unmaintained.
I dont think, we want to proxy for those users, since this would result in either the proxy
maintaining the ebuilds or many more maintainer-needed ebuild in main tree.
The next group of users are those, who actively maintain their ebuild, also help other users and do
this for a longer time. Usually those users get a mentor offer sooner or later and then become a
Gentoo Developer. So for those users, who are willing to help and can do this for longer time
(requirements for Gentoo devs), sunrise is already a good starting point and base to get in.
The only case, where there might be a (minimal) profit are those rare users, who initially commit
their ebuild and maintain exactly and only this ebuild for a longer time. There might be 2 or 3
users doing it this way, so creating just another project for this idea is imho a bit too much work
for minimal profit.

I think, it might be better to send the interested users so Sunrise, where they can learn the basics
and afterwards you could still offer them to proxy the ebuild (sunrise has an extra branch for proxy
maintainers).
A much better idea is imho to make the idea and way of Sunrise more public and easier to see without
searching (Homepage, FAQ, Forums), so interested users can find it easier. In addition, every dev,
who is interested in proxy maintaining something can do this via Sunrise.



-- 
Thomas Sachau

Gentoo Linux Developer


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Re: [gentoo-dev] [RFC]: Proxy-maintainer project

[Markos Chandras]

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On Thursday 18 March 2010 21:09:43 Thomas Sachau wrote:
> On 03/18/2010 05:29 PM, Markos Chandras wrote:
> > Dear fellow developers,
> > 
> > A new project is about to start so I am requesting your feedback
> > 
> > The primary goal of the Proxy Maintainers[1] project is to create and
> > maintain relationships between developers and users in order to ensure
> > packages in the
> 
> > Gentoo tree stay up to date. This involves a few main tasks:
> Also it is a nice idea, i dont think, it will help Gentoo in the longer
> term. As i can see with the Sunrise project, most users only want to get
> their ebuild initially into portage/sunrise. They also listen to
> suggestions, improve their code and read a document to get access. But in
> most cases, they only do the initial commit or initial commit+some version
> bumps before they leave again and the ebuild is unmaintained.
> I dont think, we want to proxy for those users, since this would result in
> either the proxy maintaining the ebuilds or many more maintainer-needed
> ebuild in main tree. 
These users are not our target group. Our target group are highly motivated 
users who are willing to see their ebuilds on portage tree, they just dont 
know who to poke or contact us to make that happen. Some of them will be from 
the Sunrise userbase since we have these kind of Gentoo users there
> The next group of users are those, who actively
> maintain their ebuild, also help other users and do this for a longer
> time. Usually those users get a mentor offer sooner or later and then
> become a Gentoo Developer. 
Not always. I can remember at least 4 different occasions where it took them >1 
year becoming a developer. Proxy-maintainer project is a good way to keep them 
around without pushing them completing their quizzes
> So for those users, who are willing to help and
> can do this for longer time (requirements for Gentoo devs), sunrise is
> already a good starting point and base to get in.
Of course. But remember that we target different user group. Through this 
project, we intend to lower the number of maintainer-wanted packages instead 
of pushing them into an overlay. The difference is that, when a developer picks 
a package from sunrise overlay, we maintains it by himself when he puts it to 
portage tree. What we want to achieve here is to make users responsible for 
their package in portage tree. 
 > The only case, where
> there might be a (minimal) profit are those rare users, who initially
> commit their ebuild and maintain exactly and only this ebuild for a longer
> time. There might be 2 or 3 users doing it this way, so creating just
> another project for this idea is imho a bit too much work for minimal
> profit.
Proxy-maintainer is not wide spread to users so they dont know this proxying 
portage ebuilds is an option. 
> 
> I think, it might be better to send the interested users so Sunrise, where
> they can learn the basics and afterwards you could still offer them to
> proxy the ebuild (sunrise has an extra branch for proxy maintainers).
> A much better idea is imho to make the idea and way of Sunrise more public
> and easier to see without searching (Homepage, FAQ, Forums), so interested
> users can find it easier. In addition, every dev, who is interested in
> proxy maintaining something can do this via Sunrise.
Sunrise is an excellent place to train users. But we still to let them know 
that they can control their ebuilds on portage through us. We need to let them 
know what proxy-maintainer is and how to take advantage of it

Are you willing to to adjust the Sunrise page accordingly? Like listing info 
about proxy maintainer thingie and possibly another column on the developer 
project table listing our areas of interest? Something like merging the two 
projects or extending the Sunrise one if you like

-- 
Markos Chandras (hwoarang)
Gentoo Linux Developer
Web: http://hwoarang.silverarrow.org

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Re: [gentoo-dev] [RFC]: Proxy-maintainer project

[Ben de Groot]

On 18 March 2010 20:09, Thomas Sachau <tommy@gentoo.org> wrote:
> The next group of users are those, who actively maintain
> their ebuild, also help other users and do this for a longer
> time. Usually those users get a mentor offer sooner or later
> and then become a Gentoo Developer.

Recruitment being the bottleneck that it is (with candidates
waiting many months), it is good to have another option
for people who want to contribute. In my personal experience
proxy-maintenance is a good way into eventual devhood.
There is no reason not to promote the possibility of
proxy-maintenance.

Cheers,
-- 
Ben de Groot
Gentoo Linux Qt project lead developer

Re: [gentoo-dev] [RFC]: Proxy-maintainer project

[Angelo Arrifano]

On 18-03-2010 18:24, Sébastien Fabbro wrote:
> On Thursday 18 March, Markos Chandras wrote:
> 
>> 1) Should we use a new overlay? A new branch on sunrise? or work
>> ebuilds in Gentoo bugzilla?I think the latter is the best
>> 2) I think an email alias is not needed We can "monitor"
>> maintainer-wanted/- needed alias if needed. What do you think?
>> 3) Maybe a new KEYWORD needs to be added on bugzilla so ppl get
>> informed that the specific bug is already taking by another developer
>> and that somebody is working on it. So marking a bug with a keyword
>> e.g. "PROXY" might be useful.
> 
> 0) Switch portage cvs tree to multiple git ones.

+1

This is exactly the case where the use of repository branching makes sense.

- Angelo
> 
> Sebastien
> 

Re: [gentoo-dev] [RFC]: Proxy-maintainer project

[Markos Chandras]

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On Thursday 18 March 2010 23:03:37 Angelo Arrifano wrote:
> On 18-03-2010 18:24, Sébastien Fabbro wrote:
> > On Thursday 18 March, Markos Chandras wrote:
> >> 1) Should we use a new overlay? A new branch on sunrise? or work
> >> ebuilds in Gentoo bugzilla?I think the latter is the best
> >> 2) I think an email alias is not needed We can "monitor"
> >> maintainer-wanted/- needed alias if needed. What do you think?
> >> 3) Maybe a new KEYWORD needs to be added on bugzilla so ppl get
> >> informed that the specific bug is already taking by another developer
> >> and that somebody is working on it. So marking a bug with a keyword
> >> e.g. "PROXY" might be useful.
> > 
> > 0) Switch portage cvs tree to multiple git ones.
> 
> +1
> 
> This is exactly the case where the use of repository branching makes sense.
> 
> - Angelo
> 
> > Sebastien
Git migration may take quite a time.  Recruit new developers takes a lot of 
time as well. So this project may help us train new developers and make them 
feel comfortable with gentoo internals
-- 
Markos Chandras (hwoarang)
Gentoo Linux Developer
Web: http://hwoarang.silverarrow.org

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Re: [gentoo-dev] [RFC]: Proxy-maintainer project

[Alex Alexander]

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On Thu, Mar 18, 2010 at 06:29:56PM +0200, Markos Chandras wrote:
> Dear fellow developers,
> 
> A new project is about to start so I am requesting your feedback
> 
> The primary goal of the Proxy Maintainers[1] project is to create and maintain 
> relationships between developers and users in order to ensure packages in the 
> Gentoo tree stay up to date. This involves a few main tasks: 
>
> 
> [...]
>
> 1) Should we use a new overlay? A new branch on sunrise? or work ebuilds in 
> Gentoo bugzilla?I think the latter is the best

IMO, the best route would be to start with-in Gentoo Bugs, then slowly
move each contributor to a proxy-maintainer overlay.

This overlay would not have a review process for ebuilds, meaning that every
contributor that has passed the first stage (by submitting a few ebuilds in
bugzilla) will be granted access.

that way users will:

* get experience on actually committing stuff to a tree
* learn how to use tools like repoman and git (think of the future ;))

it will also be better for us. moving packages from the overlay to tree
will be simpler, also tracking versions and package status will be
easier.

> 2) I think an email alias is not needed We can "monitor" maintainer-wanted/-
> needed alias if needed. What do you think?

If we go with the new overlay, I think we'll need an alias where the
users can ask for help and talk about their packages.

> 3) Maybe a new KEYWORD needs to be added on bugzilla so ppl get informed that 
> the specific bug is already taking by another developer and that somebody is 
> working on it. So marking a bug with a keyword e.g. "PROXY" might be useful.

Thats not a bad idea.
Another solution would be to assign the bugs to proxy-maintainers@g.o.

-- 
Alex Alexander :: wired
Gentoo Developer
www.linuxized.com

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Re: [gentoo-dev] [RFC]: Proxy-maintainer project

[Richard Freeman]

On 03/18/2010 04:34 PM, Ben de Groot wrote:
> Recruitment being the bottleneck that it is (with candidates
> waiting many months), it is good to have another option
> for people who want to contribute.

If we do have a list of people waiting to get in, could we maybe publish 
this list somewhere, or instruct these people to look for 
maintainer-wanted bugs and offer their services as proxy-maintainers? 
Can we have some way of communicating that one of these almost-devs has 
written some ebuilds so that devs can work with them to get them committed?

This would get them a head-start and will give them VERY practical 
instruction.  For the devs that work with them they'll know that they're 
working with somebody with a long-term interest.  I'm not sure that we 
want a policy that states that when the recruits become devs that they 
will maintain these packages long-term, but it would be nice if they did so.

Perhaps the devs could also provide feedback to the recruiters on the 
recruit's strong/weak points so that they could work on these.  (NOTE - 
I'm not suggesting marking people for exclusion here - if somebody is 
fairly raw we want to work with them, but it doesn't hurt for the 
recruiters to know about that up-front.)

I realized that some of these ideas are still half-baked, but I'm 
wondering if there isn't an opportunity here.

Rich