[Pkg-alsa-devel] Stepping back

[Jordi Mallach]

Hi all,

On Wed, Mar 22, 2006 at 01:23:31PM +0100, Thomas Hood wrote:
> This is just to let the other members of the ALSA packaging team know
> that I am "stepping back" from active participation.  To me this means
> that I won't feel responsible for doing things like responding to bug
> reports, updating packages on upstream releases, following bug reports
> in the Debian and Ubuntu BTSs, and so on.

This is really bad news.

> Working on this team has been a lot of fun and the good working
> relationships allowed me to be productive and to enjoy feelings of
> accomplishment on a regular basis.  These are the reasons I stayed
> this long, despite the fact that I don't actually make much use of
> ALSA!
> 
> I step back now for several reasons.  Like anyone else I have a
> limited amount of time to devote to free software.  I believe that a
> certain amount of turnover in maintainership is a good thing.  I
> believe that the team can carry on well without me.  Apart from that I
> see myself as more peripherally involved in Debian than when I was in
> the new-maintainer process.  Finally, I don't run Debian any more, but
> Ubuntu; packages that I have worked on in Debian have diverged
> significantly in Ubuntu and this makes it less convenient for me to
> work on the Debian variants.

Well, it sucks that this is related to your bad NM experience. I wish
you could have sorted it in the end, but I guess it's too late now.

It's obvious that I don't have much time myself, and for a long time
I've tried to commit to releasing whenever the list said the stuff was
ready to go. It would be silly for me to think I can keep working on the
ALSA team as before, but without Thomas' input.

Thomas has been one of most dedicate maintainers I've ever worked with.
I'm always amazed about his incredible attention to detail, and how he
cares about every tiny detail in the packages. He's also done an
incredible job cleaning the BTS since he came in. There was a great mess
of very old bugs, untriaged, unforwarded and unfixed. The ALS BTS space
is nowdays workable because things are under control.

More importantly, he managed to establish a communication channel
between Debian ALSA and the upstream developers, something neither me,
Steve or David had time for, ever.

Thanks for all the work, Thomas!

So, with this loss in the team, we really need to see what we want to do
in the near future. As I said, for a long time I've been very time
constrained, and things don't look like they'll get any better. If the
new people in the team don't step up and take more active roles (I can
still get releases done), we'll have to make announcements to look for
even newer blood.

Thomas, I understand from your email that you'll continue to maintain
the Ubuntu packages. I guess the new team will want to work closely with
you, in our quest to keep the gap as small as possible.

> I have deliberated over whether a formal announcement like this is
> needed.  On the negative side it seems rather pretentious.  On the
> positive side it is consistent with my view of maintainership as a
> responsibility; it is important that the other team members know that
> I plan not to carry out certain tasks.  Debian's constitution
> explicitly denies that Debian Developers should have such
> responsibilities (§2.1) so I won't say that the responsibilities now
> fall on your shoulders.  I'll just think it quietly.  :)
> 
> My experience may still be valuable, so I will remain subscribed to
> the mailing list and I'll participate in discussions from time to
> time.

I don't think it's pretentious at all. It's needed, or we might react
about your inactivity when things get very bad again. Hopefully this
won't happen...

Jordi
-- 
Jordi Mallach Pérez  --  Debian developer     http://www.debian.org/
jordi at sindominio.net     jordi at debian.org     http://www.sindominio.net/
GnuPG public key information available at http://oskuro.net/
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 191 bytes
Desc: Digital signature
Url : http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/pkg-alsa-devel/attachments/20060324/ab87ac03/attachment.pgp