Proposal for revitalizing the sponsorship process for packaging

[Jon Ciesla]

On Thu, Apr 26, 2012 at 8:02 AM, Alec Leamas <leamas.alec at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 04/26/2012 02:30 PM, Jon Ciesla wrote:
>>
>> On Thu, Apr 26, 2012 at 6:59 AM, Alec Leamas<leamas.alec at gmail.com>
>>  wrote:
>>>
>>> On 04/26/2012 01:18 PM, Nelson Marques wrote:
>>>>
>>>> No dia 26 de Abril de 2012 01:08, Stephen Gallagher
>>>> <sgallagh at redhat.com>    escreveu:
>>>>>
>>>>> On Wed, 2012-04-25 at 22:43 +0000, "Jóhann B. Guðmundsson" wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Why not just drop the sponsorship process and just raise the barrier
>>>>>> of
>>>>>> entry for the packaging process instead?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Like having to have been a comaintainer for atleast one release cycle
>>>>>> then completed x many reviews in the next etc. ( essentally what you
>>>>>> propose there just without the "sponsor" ) and finally you are
>>>>>> maintaining your own package or if we drop that outdated ownership
>>>>>> model
>>>>>> we have in place are free to roam "free" in the packaging community
>>>>>> and
>>>>>> assist when ever, where ever possible...
>>>>>
>>>>> This approach completely disregards the very common example of "I'm an
>>>>> upstream maintainer of a cool project. I want to package and maintain
>>>>> it
>>>>> for Fedora." Under your approach, they'd first have to become involved
>>>>> in other projects before being allowed to add their package. This is
>>>>> unacceptable and would basically guarantee that no upstream would
>>>>> willingly involve itself with Fedora.
>>>>
>>>> I was asked by a upstream to maintain a package for Fedora due to the
>>>> high demand it has from Fedora users, unfortunatly I backed down from
>>>> the proposal for several purposes:
>>>>
>>> [cut]
>>>
>>> Still, besides this sad experience, isn't this the kind of cooperation we
>>> should encourage? Now and then those great people with great apps want
>>> their
>>> app in Fedora. Instead of saying "Wonderful, welcome", we send them a
>>> list
>>> of an actually quite complicated set of requirements to become a
>>> packager.
>>> But those people don't  want that, they just want their application
>>> packaged. And although they havn't the packaging skills, they know their
>>> app. And that's actually a damned good starting point.
>>>
>>> What I'm talking about is  to tell these great people that there are two
>>> ways to get their app packaged. One way is to become a packager, and so
>>> far
>>> this discussion is about that path,. Obviously, the requirements here are
>>> beyond knowing an app, though.
>>>
>>> The other way should be to find, persuade  (bribe?) a packager to take
>>> care
>>> of the package in cooperation with the developer. As I understand it,
>>> there
>>> is no such path today(?)  I think it's a pity, because the cooperation
>>> between a developer and a packager is actually a good way of doing it.
>>
>> I've been asked to package things before, by friends, colleagues,
>> upstream devs, etc.  My response it typically, "Oh, neat, I'd never
>> heard of that!"<rushes off to make an RPM and submit a review>   I
>> know we have a wishlist, but I'm not sure it's being used by
>> non-packagers, or packagers for that matter.
>>
> Which is fine if you are friend, colleague or an upstream developer knowing
> about you. Not all are ;)
>
> Seems  that when this happens, it's going the informal way - which is good.
>  But someone who just tries to read the webpages,  will eventually submit a
> bugzilla package review request. And in many cases things have gone terribly
> wrong then IMHO.
>
> I might be totally out in the blue, but my feeling is that there's a lot of
> information on "How to become a Fedora packager" - but very little about
> "How do I get my package into Fedora?". If this is true, it might possibly
> reflect that this issue havn't been thought of as needed.
>
> Being a newbie I havn't seen the fedora wishlist (but rpmfusions's). The
> first thing which strikes me when I check it is that the there's no link to
> the person who submitted the request. For me, this is essential - having a
> motivated contact upstream makes a difference.

Yes!  Exactly.  I'd love to see this fixed.  What if we had a simple
process where someone could file a BZ with a component of Wishlist or
something, and we could direct this sort of thing there?  Then
existing packagers could check it out, file a review BZ blocking that
Wishlist bug, and the submitter therefore would be reachable, and
could follow the whole process.  Also, since BZ is searchable, people
could search it before submitting a Wishlist or Review, to see if it's
already out there being worked on, if it was tried and failed, why
that might be, etc.

I'm not sure if this needs a Whole New Process, or simply a new link
and BZ component.

Thoughts?

-J

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