Proposal for revitalizing the sponsorship process for packaging

[Michael Schwendt]

On Thu, 26 Apr 2012 18:13:52 +0200, AL (Alec) wrote:

> But isn't part of the problem that 
> current process forces people which just are interested in a package to 
> suddenly discover that they are applying to be packagers?

We are in need of _more_ packagers, not less packagers who grab a hundred
packages each without actually maintaining them all properly (and sometimes
even without using the package at all).

Especially if as a packager you're not involved upstream, you need to stay
in contact with upstream through other ways and e.g. observe upstream scm
commits, forward bug reports and fixes, ...

> Shouldn't some 
> of these  cases be better off if they could drop "their" package in some 
> kind of wishlist 2.0, and try to get in contact with a packager instead?

Same answer as above. Plus:

A wishlist, whether 1.0 or 2.0, is just another sort of queue. Existing
packagers may take a look and process items on the list. You need N>0
packagers for each item on the list. A user doesn't help in that case.
A user's contact with upstream is useless, too, unless the user joins the
Fedora Project and contributes __something__ to the package, whether it
be bugzilla work or filing of updates, at least __something__ at all.
And an upstream developer is available always (unless it's software that
isn't maintained anymore).

So, what has been proposed before (years ago even) is for advanced
packagers (aka "provenpackagers" or experienced packagers) to lower the
hurdle and trust them more in that they know their stuff.  They would not
need to wait for somebody else (possibly a fresh packager) to
review'n'approve a package or just its licensing. It's considered
ridiculous by some that "senior packagers" still need approval for
even simple new packages or package renames.

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