Re: [Gnewsense-dev] recruitment and retention of gNewSense developers

[Karl Goetz]

On Wed, 11 Aug 2010 14:08:20 +0200
address@hidden (avr) wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> On Mon, Aug 09, 2010 at 10:12:20AM -0400, Delyan Raychev wrote:
> 
> > Partially triggered by own guilt, but primarily by the desire to
> > grow the gNewSense project I've been contemplating on the scarce
> > developer manpower here at the gNewSense project.
> 
> [...]
> 
> > Any comments, questions, suggestions?
> 
> It might be worthwhile to see if it is possible to involve the
> the upstream distribution to a larger degree.

++

> One option is that gNewSense users who have access to
> both a gNewSense computer and a Debian computer, match our bugs to
> Debian's and post and see them through on Debian's bugtracking
> system, to help Debian and in turn help Debian help gNewSense.

It has a direct benefit to us too: we know that bug wasn't caused by us.

> Another (more laborious) one is that an infrastructure is set up
> where any willing dd can become a gnewsense developer. Even though

work in progress...

> there are differences between the projects, I think there are very
> few dds who bear any ill will against gnewsense, and at least some,
> if given the opportunity and it is made easy enough for them, would
> not mind making the effort of checking if their package is ready for
> gnewsense on top of their normal work for debian.

Those dds are probably a very very small number. There are lots of
debian derivatives, and maintaining an environment for each
distribution and then testing with it is a fairly manual process.

> Debian developers are normally not waiting for *more* work, such as
> taking care of any derivative distributions. But since most of the
> derivatives usually take their fork in a less free direction, some
> might make an exception for gnewsense, if it is made easy enough for
> them and does not add substantially to their burden.

Not sure I understand the logic there. Just because gNS tries to be
freer, DDs will be more likely to work on it?

> These are just suggestions I can come up with right now, but
> if there are ways that would increase gnewsense's visibility within
> the debian project that would not be detrimental or overly burdensome
> to them, I think these would warrant consideration. It might give
> gnewsense the exposure it needs to attract developers who should be
> at least somewhat informed about gnewsense's goals.

Its been suggested to me we try and get ourselves added below ubuntu on
the debian pts [1]. If someone is interested in doing the python to make
that happen, let me know ...

[1] eg http://packages.qa.debian.org/f/freeciv.html , right hand side.
kk

-- 
Karl Goetz, (Kamping_Kaiser / VK5FOSS)
Debian contributor / gNewSense Maintainer
http://www.kgoetz.id.au
No, I won't join your social networking group

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