Jack Frost wrote: > >I tried to "take" an orphaned package ... can't not a packager, so I > >tried to do a review, and even though I appear to be part of the group, > >I couldn't even access the review build because apparently I don't have > >the rights. [I think this is a misunderstanding. There are no private builds in Fedora infra. Anyone (even without logging in) should be able to access any build. What was the build that you couldn't access?] > >My point is yes, it is requiring effort and it should but not to the > >extent of stonewalling contributions, and largely because the > >guidelines are confusing, it is a bit like reading a hand drawn map > >while driving IMO. Yeah, I think the sponsorship process, with unclear and unequal rules is one of the most antiquated parts of Fedora. > >So, back to orphaned packages, if a person from the community is signed > >up, signed the CA, the CoC, is a member of the appropriate groups, that > >person should be able to volunteer to take on orphaned packages, at > >least on a trila basis till they need no handholding. The deesire to > >contribute should be the bar to contribute is my point. On Wed, Aug 11, 2021 at 01:57:15PM -0400, Ben Beasley wrote: > In my opinion, rescuing orphaned packages tends to be one of the > harder packaging tasks. Many packages are orphaned for lack of time, > so they often have lingering obsolete practices that ought to be > brought into compliance with current guidelines. Many others are > orphaned because they have problems the previous packager found too > difficult, time-consuming, or frustrating to fix. Working on > orphaned packages can be a good way to learn quickly and a great way > to contribute, but I think new packagers are likely to need more > mentoring for these packages, not less. I think there's some idea to rescue here. I agree that adopting orphaned packages can be harder than it seems, but OTOH, it's a task that has big benefits for the community. In the past, the recommended way to become a packager, and the way that had the easiest process, was to add a new package. This made a lot of sense when the distro was smaller and there were always new things that could be reasonably added. Nowadays, we either have most upstream projects packaged, or they are very big and complex to package, or have many dependencies, or legal issues, or there just isn't that much need to have them packaged. And all other things being equal, I it's better to have one package maintained continuously, than a package maintained for some time and then dropped, and another package maintained. While we may have a constant of 1 package maintained, the second case disappoints users. tl;dr: I think we should change the guidelines [1] to explicitly recommend opening a pull request for an orphaned package as one of the ways. Maybe even describe it first. And describe the steps that need to be done in detail, so that it's easy to unexperienced folks to follow. [1] https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/How_to_get_sponsored_into_the_packager_group#Convincing_someone_to_sponsor_you Zbyszek _______________________________________________ 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
