Hello Dan, Thank you for reaching out with your response. I have to admit, I was in a provocotive mood the other day. I had solved a problem for a customer that had been worked on unsuccessfully by a local competitor for three weeks. I was at that moment the master of my trade craft and in fully glory. I bought some beer to celebrate and the resulting email came out. So that is not to say I wasn't at least venting some portion of truth. Please bear with me as I have spent 6 decades walking upright, and sometimes I find laying the foundation of a conversation requires preparation. I have built RPM's and SRPM's according to RedHat specifications, I think using their tutorials. I have also built an unoffical flatpak of the IntelliJ IDE IDEA. So as for technical capability, I can read a manual as well as the next person. My thoughts were that the sponsoring, the proven packagers were supposed to be package mentors I thought originally, shouldn't happen until after sign up, and sign up is preconditioned by a basic CBT course with "build an RPM" test as final progression criteria for getting to ask for a sponsor. Not something inhibiting but just build a simple RPM to cover tha basic process. My reasoning is the process for getting onboarded should, like accepting a resume or CV from anyone at anytime, be an open door. In order to capatilize on numbers certainly but also to encourage the real potential individuals who can contribute technically, but are severely hampered by initial barriers. Even if the barriers are only perceived ones. The initial CBT I mentioned would be a way for someone like that to get a "free test". A sort of confidence boost that takes nothing but their time, and allows them to show they can do that part. Also, if they have difficulties doing a simple RPM, they could take some time to get that going and come back to try again. All of this can happen without the need for a sponsor getting involved until a minimum level of capability is ascertained, which should offload some time (for sponsors), though likely minimal I would guess. We could make it a badge. On Thu, 2021-08-12 at 19:58 +0000, Dan Čermák wrote: > I'd also like to plug Jakub's new sponsor page: > https://docs.pagure.org/fedora-sponsors/all > > There you can find all currently active sponsors by language, > interest, etc. > I like the work Jakub did on the sponsor page. This is a good way to present them. > > Cheers, > > Dan As for Eclipse in Fedora Linux, sadly I must say I left trying to get Eclipse going on Fedora Linux (Silverblue now) some time ago, in favour of doing what I needed in my home directory, including maven and graal, and using netbeans flatpak for IDE because it works. I don't blame Fedora Linux or the related packagers, the satate of Java can be fully blamed on the corporate entities involved at the heart of java. I think the packing group is doing the work, they are the ones who put together this thing we call Fedora Linux. As for myself, I have enjoyed the benefits of Fedora Linux for a very long time and appreciate the efforts daily. I would like to return more than appreciation to the community and that is my impetus for wanting to package. I think I will take Chris Murphy's advice and start with reviews for now, there is a rather long backlog it seems. Regards, Stephen > > On August 12, 2021 7:29:10 AM UTC, Felix Schwarz > <fschwarz@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > Hi Stephen, > > > > thank you for your interest in contributing to Fedora. I can > > totally understand > > that the current policies may seem overwhelming so that becoming a > > packager > > might be seen as some kind of "elite" status. > > I think I would feel the same way if I didn't become a packager ~10 > > years ago. > > > > However I would like to emphasize Ben's point: > > > I think becoming a packager is not as complicated as you’ve > > > written. To > > > become a packager, you must convince a packager sponsor to > > > sponsor you. > > > That’s all; there is no rule about how to do the convincing. > > > > Maybe you do 1-2 package updates or fixes (pull request via > > src.fedoraproject.org) and check the Fedora wiki pages for a list > > of sponsors. > > Try contacting some of them directly after you verified they are > > still active > > (mailing list/src.fedoraproject.org). Also it helps usually if > > these sponsors > > are interested in the languages/tech stack which you tried to > > improve. > > > > That being said: Java in Fedora is one of the hardest areas to > > tackle. Several > > "high profile" packagers had to give up on that task (despite > > heroic efforts) > > because it is just too much for one person (or a small team). > > > > Part of the problem is that the Java upstream "culture" does not > > matches the > > processes of a traditional Linux distribution like Fedora. Lots of > > bundled > > dependencies, "secret" build processes and on top a huge number of > > small packages. > > > > I can understand that "keeping Eclipse in Fedora" is a worthy goal > > for sure but > > really a lot of work. Other areas like Python packaging are much > > easier as > > applications tend to be smaller and bundling is less common in the > > Python world. > > (Also great efforts by our Python team!) > > > > > > One of the things I'd be interested in is "reprocible builds" which > > I think > > might be easier to contribute. While there is a lot of > > infrastructure to build > > (= a lot of work) you can also just fix one package at a time > > (probably with a > > few upstream commits). Even if you stop contributing to Fedora > > after some months > > or years you advanced the state of Fedora/Linux anyway. > > > > Felix > > _______________________________________________ > > devel mailing list -- devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx > > To unsubscribe send an email to devel-leave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx > > Fedora Code of Conduct: > > https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/project/code-of-conduct/ > > List Guidelines: > > https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines > > List Archives: > > https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx > > Do not reply to spam on the list, report it: > > https://pagure.io/fedora-infrastructure _______________________________________________ devel mailing list -- devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx To unsubscribe send an email to devel-leave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Fedora Code of Conduct: https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/project/code-of-conduct/ List Guidelines: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines List Archives: https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Do not reply to spam on the list, report it: https://pagure.io/fedora-infrastructure
