Draft of maintainer and sponsor responsibility policies

[Toshio Kuratomi]

At the last fesco meeting we talked about the ramifications of allowing
any person in the packager grop to commit to packages and decided that
rather than having more accounts and acls on to manage this, that it was
desirable to change the responsibilities of sponsors and maintainers.

The goal is to stop saying that a sponsor is responsible for cleaning up
after their sponsorees should the sponsoree start making bad commits to
a bunch of packages.  Instead, the burden of looking for such bad commits
goes to the package maintainers who choose to open their packages to the
packager group.  We want to encourage more sponsors to take on people that are
not yet good packagers but have the potential to grow into good packagers with
a little mentoring.

Updated policy drafts are here:
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Package_sponsor_responsibilities%28draft%29
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Package_maintainer_responsibilities%28draf...

and will be on the agenda for next weeks FESCo meeting.

-Toshio

[Björn Persson]

Toshio Kuratomi wrote:
> https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Package_sponsor_responsibilities%28draft%29 
It says "package sponsor" in the URL, in the heading and in the second 
paragraph. I think it should be "packager sponsor" as the sponsor sponsors a 
packager, not a package.

Björn Persson

[Toshio Kuratomi]

On Sat, Feb 13, 2010 at 09:03:37PM +0100, Björn Persson wrote:
>  Toshio Kuratomi wrote:
>  > https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Package_sponsor_responsibilities%28draft%29
>  
>  It says "package sponsor" in the URL, in the heading and in the second 
>  paragraph. I think it should be "packager sponsor" as the sponsor sponsors a 
>  packager, not a package.
>   
Good point.  Changed.

-Toshio

[Patrice Dumas]

On Sat, Feb 13, 2010 at 02:08:36PM -0500, Toshio Kuratomi wrote:
>  
>  packager group.  We want to encourage more sponsors to take on people that are
>  not yet good packagers but have the potential to grow into good packagers with
>  a little mentoring.
>  
>  Updated policy drafts are here:
>  https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Package_sponsor_responsibilities%28draft%29 
It is not clear to me how the changes in the draft policies address this
issue.

More precisely, I agree that, in the current policy, 
'Make sure the maintainers you sponsor follow guidelines'
and 
'  Fix issues caused by sponsored maintainers '
'Help answer maintainers' questions'
are redundant. So it is a good thing to merge them. But I don't think that
'Make sure the maintainers you sponsor follow guidelines' put more 
pressure on the maintainer than what is in the draft in 
'  Fix issues in sponsored maintainers' packages '
(although explicitly saying that solving an issue may be finding other
sources of information is good).

Moreover, I think that in the draft some aspects of sponsoree help have 
been removed (they were in 'Make sure the maintainers you sponsor follow
guidelines'
and weren't put in another section), I think that they should be readded. 
More precisely, I think that

'sponsors should guide the sponsored maintainer to do the best choices in packaging
and reviewing, and to follow the guidelines.'

should be readded in '  Help answer maintainers questions '.

Also the information on how to watch the sponsoree in bugzilla should
be kept, in my opinion, but put in a specific section and explicitly marked
as optionnal.

I can implement the changes that are agreed.

--
Pat

[Patrice Dumas]

On Sun, Feb 14, 2010 at 12:20:08PM +0100, Patrice Dumas wrote:
>  On Sat, Feb 13, 2010 at 02:08:36PM -0500, Toshio Kuratomi wrote:
>  > 
>  > packager group.  We want to encourage more sponsors to take on people that are
>  > not yet good packagers but have the potential to grow into good packagers with
>  > a little mentoring.
>  > 
>  > Updated policy drafts are here:
>  > https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Package_sponsor_responsibilities%28draft%29
>  
>  It is not clear to me how the changes in the draft policies address this
>  issue. 
I wasn't very clear here. What I mean is that I think that the 
current policy already doesn't put an obligation on the sponsor to
follow everything his sponsoree did, but help in case it is asked
for.

At the same time I also agree that it is not a bad idea to revisit
this policy and make it clearer, so I am all for the changes, except
for the bits I said in the previous mail.

--
Pat

[Toshio Kuratomi]

On Sun, Feb 14, 2010 at 12:20:08PM +0100, Patrice Dumas wrote:
>  On Sat, Feb 13, 2010 at 02:08:36PM -0500, Toshio Kuratomi wrote:
>  > 
>  > packager group.  We want to encourage more sponsors to take on people that are
>  > not yet good packagers but have the potential to grow into good packagers with
>  > a little mentoring.
>  > 
>  > Updated policy drafts are here:
>  > https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Package_sponsor_responsibilities%28draft%29
>  
>  It is not clear to me how the changes in the draft policies address this
>  issue.
>   
<nod> When I checked the original page, I was struck by some of this as
well.  In particular, we had a rule before this page was written that the
sponsor was responsible for cleaning up after the sponsored maintainer
should they run amuck and make a bunch of bad commits in the repository.
Since we remade packager and provenpackager groups to limit what a packager
can commit to and make smaller the number of provenpackagers, this isn't as
big a concern.  However, with the potential re-adding of an "open my
package to packager group, the issue of who is responsible for that cleanup
comes up again.

>  More precisely, I agree that, in the current policy, 
>  'Make sure the maintainers you sponsor follow guidelines'
>  and 
>  '  Fix issues caused by sponsored maintainers '
>  'Help answer maintainers' questions'
>  are redundant. So it is a good thing to merge them. But I don't think that
>  'Make sure the maintainers you sponsor follow guidelines' put more 
>  pressure on the maintainer than what is in the draft in 
>  '  Fix issues in sponsored maintainers' packages '
>  (although explicitly saying that solving an issue may be finding other
>  sources of information is good).
>   
So, at least the titles and phrasing of the two sections is very different.

"Help answer maintainers' questions" is driven by the needs of the
maintainer.  They come to you, the sponsor with a specific question and at
that point you start working with them to resolve their issues.

'Make sure the maintainers you sponsor follow quidelines' and 'Fix issues
caused by sponsored maintainers' demand a more active role of sponsors --
you, the sponsor becme responsible for watching what the packager does.  And
if the packager makes bad commits, you are on the hook to clean it up.
That's why I see them as putting more pressure on the sponsor.

>  Moreover, I think that in the draft some aspects of sponsoree help have 
>  been removed (they were in 'Make sure the maintainers you sponsor follow
> guidelines'
>  and weren't put in another section), I think that they should be readded. 
>  More precisely, I think that
>  
>  'sponsors should guide the sponsored maintainer to do the best choices in packaging
> and reviewing, and to follow the guidelines.'
>  
>  should be readded in '  Help answer maintainers questions '.
>   
I've added Packaging Guidelines as an example in that section.

Feel free to modify it... but be careful to keep the distinction that
a maintainers responsibilities extend to helping the packager understand the
guidelines but do not include having to police their sponsorees (which is the
problem with the wording in the precise quote you have).

>  Also the information on how to watch the sponsoree in bugzilla should
>  be kept, in my opinion, but put in a specific section and explicitly marked
>  as optionnal.
>   
I went back and forth on this one but couldn't figure out how to put it in.
Perhaps, marked as optional and introduced by something like: If you want to
take a more active role in watching what your sponsoree does and correcting
their mistakes you can do....

Another thing that could be added to such a section is adding yourself to
watchbugzilla/watchcommits in the pkgdb (this is automatically granted now).

-Toshio

[Patrice Dumas]

On Sun, Feb 14, 2010 at 11:38:21AM -0500, Toshio Kuratomi wrote:
>  I went back and forth on this one but couldn't figure out how to
> put it in.
>  Perhaps, marked as optional and introduced by something like: If you want to
>  take a more active role in watching what your sponsoree does and correcting
>  their mistakes you can do....
>  
>  Another thing that could be added to such a section is adding yourself to
>  watchbugzilla/watchcommits in the pkgdb (this is automatically granted now). 
I thought about it a bit more, and I think that such practical tips should
not be on the policy.

I think that the policy is right as it is now.

--
Pat