help Proposal

[Loïc Minier]

        Hi,

On Thu, Sep 07, 2006, Martin Braure de Calignon wrote:
> I would be interested in maintaining or co-maintaining one package to
> help your team.

 Great!

> My practice of packaging is low (I'm currently maintaining lostirc and
> gaim-themes packages). I also did some packages for myself a while ago,
> but I couldn't release them because the source code wasn't mine and
> wasn't free.

 That's ok, of course if you ask us, we prefer experienced developer. ;)

> Otherwise, what do you want me to do for helping gnome in debian :) ?

 It would be nice if you come on a semi-regular basis on our IRC
 channel, #gnome-debian on GIMPNet, but that's not required.

 You may either:
 - pick some packages you will focus on and improve them, fix bugs,
   prepare new upstream releases etc.
 - or do QA across the GNOME packages by focusing on a particular type
   of fixes and doing them everywhere, e.g. merging patches, triaging
   bugs, fixing watch files etc.

 I suggest you do both, the second task is more suited for a new
 developer, the first one will help you perfect the rest of your
 packaging skills.

 The area where we're lagging the most is bug triaging, but it's rapidly
 painful to handle it.  The process is in short:
 - check whether the bug is forwarded or not
   * not forwarded => verify you reproduce the bug
     . you have the bug too, check it happen with the latest upstream
       release if possible
     . you don't have the bug, check whether it was fixed in past
       release, and/or ping the submitter to check with the latest
       version
     . check for upstream bug on the subject (perhaps already closed)
     . forward upstream if appropriate
  * forwarded => status upstream in sync with Debian?  patch usptream?
    patch in Debian? act accordingly; usually, you don't need to look at
    forwarded bugs, they should be tagged properly in Debian
    automatically
 - investigate bugs
 - write patches
 - TWD!

 If you want to work with the SVN, please propose a couple of
 meaningful changes (eg prepare new upstream release, add patch, fix a
 packaging bug), and we will add you to the access list.

   Bye,
-- 
Loïc Minier <lool at dooz.org>