I wanted to elaborate on one of the ideas I threw out during that
discussion.
We (need to|should|strive really hard to) treat new packagers more like
new volunteers for fedora infrastructure. Except that we should accept
that packaging is really, really hard when you don't know where to start
and offer more hand-holding. The infrastructure process seems to work
really well (for infrastructure, at least) and the new packager process
seems to _not_ work really well, so....
Note that I'm assuming here that we don't have that miraculous review
handling program (fresque). I know someone was working on it, and I
should probably see what state it's in, but I'm way behind after being
on vacation for a month. It wouldn't really alter the central point
anyway.
My random proposal for that is to:
1) Add more "front end" to the process (which, yeah, means more process
when we already have too much process). Packagers should send an
introduction and such, perhaps even before they have a package. They
may need help doing that, after all, and we should be providing that
help.
2) At some point, they should be assigned three (or some other
reasonable number) mentors, including (if possible) one from the same
region (from the ambassadors pool or one of the regional groups) just
to help with language issues in case they come up. These don't have
to be sponsors, but at least two should be packagers. Hopefully one
is familiar with and has interest in the "type" of software they
intend to package. (Python, Java, games, whatnot.)
3) They should also be assigned a sponsor from the sponsor pool, if one
is not part of the mentor group. This person will oversee the
process and actually give the permissions, though they don't
necessarily have to do the heavy lifting.
3) These mentors should be "on hand" to assist the packager, answer
questions, etc.
4) We should encourage that new packagers put their specs in pagure so
that people can file pull requests against them. Probably small
specs for easy packages don't need this. This conveniently gives
them a base to have copr pull from, assuming I understand that
functionality of copr. They'll still have to post updates to
bugzilla but we might be able to automate that.
5) A whole bunch more automation to get packages checked and people
pinged would of course be quite useful here.
- J<