Hello Pavel,
Thank you for your thoughts. It strikes me that perhaps what you're advising me to do, is likely what I was wanting to do in the first place. I certainly don't feel dissatisfied being a non-packager in Fedora land, and I am probably a bit guilty of exageration of the difficulties on the road to becoming a packager. Honestly, I am looking forward to setting up to do some testing for now.
Thanks to everyone for taking the time to offer me the options available to become a packager, this is indeed a good part of why I enjoy being part of the community that is Fedora.
Regards,
Stephen
On Mon, 2021-08-16 at 19:59 +0200, Pavel Valena wrote:
On Fri, Aug 13, 2021 at 1:38 PM Stephen Snow <s40w5s@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: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.Hello Stephen,I think this situation is very unfortunate and unintended. I think you can do (or you can start doing it) what you came to do in Fedora, without the "packager status". In general when you already have some project / package in Fedora that you want to maintain, you can start to work on it straight away, as a part of gaining your packager status. That is, while receiving feedback /advice/ from sponsor. It's a way to gain the actual skill to become a packager - I don't think any robot/test can replace that. I don't think packaging is about just doing builds, in a way "it works", but rather creating a good spec file / good package that will last for years.Doing unofficial reviews for a package you want to get into Fedora, or submitting a new package review request (if you want to get it to Fedora), or re-review request (if you want to unorphan the package). Creating PRs with an enhancement / or package upgrade. Last one you can even do anonymously:All of the above are IMO examples of what packager does. There's no reason to do something else - you can just start straight away with what you intend to do, and get a "packager" status later. Or is there an obstacle that you packager status for, to do anything meaningful for you?I really hope there's a path to achieve what you came to Fedora for. If not, I'd argue it needs to be created.I don't think the idea of getting a packager status, just to get it reverted some time later, wouldn't help you to become a (better) packager. For all the best ways of collaboration (which is IMHO what Fedora is all about) you don't need the packager status for.Regards,Pavel
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
> > _______________________________________________
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