On Mon, 19 Jun 2006 13:21:04 -0400 (EDT), Max Spevack wrote: > * Did FESCO talk about the sponsorship questions that were raised in our > last meeting? Did they make any decisions? What were those decisions? So I arrived at this thread and tried to collect some pieces: | http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Board/Meetings/2006-06-06 | Extras Sponsorship | | First off, we all agreed that we're talking about this at the Board level, | but the actual action on the issue of Extras Sponsorship needs to happen | at the Fedora Extras Steering Committee (FESCO) level -- they are the ones | with the decision making accountability in this case, to either act or not | act. | | We heard at the Red Hat Summit that the sponsorship process isn't as | smooth or efficient as possible. Again and again, complaints like this are totally inappropriate. Who is "we", and who talked to you? Define "smooth" and "efficient". How "smooth or efficient" could the process be? | When we started talking about it, these | points were made, for consideration by anyone who enjoys the topic: | | * Some people don't want to be sponsors, and as in all parts of Fedora, | the number of people working on something is always a limiting factor. Anyone, who may have observed FESCO for the past months, should know how new sponsors have been proposed/selected. Initially, we assumed that very active reviewers would enjoy being able to also sponsor new contributors, so they could become even more productive. Suggested reviewers were collected and discussed briefly. On agreement, somebody then contacted the persons privately to ask whether the role of being a sponsor was accepted or rejected. A problem with this is not that somebody might reject the offer to become a sponsor. It is that hardly anybody does enough monitoring of "potential sponsors" in public Fedora places of activity (like bugzilla, CVS commits, mailing-lists) to suggest new sponsors _every week_. The amount of bugzilla traffic caused by package reviews is big. Automated metrics, collecting numbers on "approved packages", "packages in FE", "open reviews" and so on, only help a little bit, since there is a big difference between approving packages of existing contributors, who create clean packages, and taking a look at new contributors and their packages, which sometimes need a lot of work to even build and run. For potential sponsors (in general, very active reviewers) the primary question is whether and how they approach new contributors, who need a lot of help and guidance, and their packages, which may contain a lot of problems and pitfalls. Hence we started asking for self-nominations. To learn about active reviewers who are interested in becoming sponsors. Interested people then could give good examples of their reviewing activity. Now to the sponsor's obligations. When you approve the account request of a new contributor, you're not done. It may turn out that the sponsored person needs much more hand-holding (with Using CVS, maintaining the packages, build problems, upstream changes) and monitoring (incoming PRs and responses, package changes). It would not be the first time. And it has been criticised a couple of times that there is no post-review QA for FE. Actually, packagers are able to reintroduce packaging bugs and pitfalls, throwing away the good help they've got during the single review of their package. Some of these bugs are show-stoppers for everyone at Fedora Extras, such as the unfiltered SONAME "Provides", which have hit us at least twice, causing the buildsys to fail for many contributors. Sponsors need some time to get to know other _new_ contributors before they decide whether to sponsor them. If new contributors are not patient enough, two very good recommendations for them are - to offer working packages, at least make the src.rpm build -- it is a real pain to see how some reviewers spend much more time on incoming packages than their soon to be maintainers, - don't argue with the reviewer about the PackagingGuidelines -- wrong person, wrong place, spend your energy on contacting the packaging-list or the Packaging Group if you feel it's important, - ask questions (if you are unsure about something) and show your interest. The sponsorship process guarantees the availability of minimal resources for help/guidance (either if asked directly or if they discover something while monitoring sponsored contributors). If the number of contributors, who need help regularly, increased too fast, you can be sure that the number of problems in FE would increase, too. Plus the number of people, who drop off silently (in frustration or because they cannot handle the requirements), leaving orphaned packages until they are discovered. | * Are there major problems, or were there just a few folks grumbling? Occasionally, there are "a few folks grumbling" _in the wrong places_ about the time it takes for some packages to enter FE. Maybe these are the same folks who want the package reviews be removed? Everyone, who has complained in unknown/secret places before, talk to FESCO directly in case of serious complaints. Don't try to introduce some kind of pressure by talking to Red Hat employees or other people you assume have "something to say". This is damaging the community side of the project. There is also wrong terminology/jargon being used. Some folks keep saying "packages are sponsored", but it is: _persons_ are sponsored, _packages_ are reviewed and approved. | Is there a reasonable way for us to get meaningful data to help answer | this question? | | * Does the sponsorship process scale well enough? | | ACTION ITEM: | | * SethVidal will mention this topic in a FESCO meeting, and FESCO can | do with it what they will. _______________________________________________ fedora-advisory-board mailing list fedora-advisory-board@xxxxxxxxxx http://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-advisory-board _______________________________________________ fedora-advisory-board-readonly mailing list fedora-advisory-board-readonly@xxxxxxxxxx http://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-advisory-board-readonly
