Multimedia Teams in Debian

[Felipe Sateler]

El 21/11/08 07:19 Reinhard Tartler escribió:
> Felipe Sateler <fsateler at gmail.com> writes:
> > El 23/04/08 06:09 Fabian Greffrath escribió:
> >> I believe we could start merging the efforts of both the
> >> pkg-multimedia-maintainers and the debian-multimedia groups into one
> >> bigger project, although the current scopes of both projects are
> >> slightly different. Since this has allready been suggested today, I'd
> >> like to hear some other (Hello, team members!) opinions about it.
> >
> > Hello all. This discussion died without any further action towards
> > merging both teams. I re-brought it up a few days ago at the
> > debian-multimedia list[1], and the general consensus (ie, 2 other people)
> > is that they should be merged. Now, re-reading this particular thread, it
> > seems that the pkg-multimedia team didn't have anything against it. So,
> > lets work out a way to move forward.
>
> Yes, I still have that thread 'ticked', but I have to admit that I was
> too busy/lazy to actually answer it. Sorry for that.
>
> Let me please think aloud. I'm currently looking at the package lists:
>
> http://qa.debian.org/developer.php?login=debian-multimedia@lists.debian.org
> http://qa.debian.org/developer.php?login=pkg-multimedia-maintainers@lists.a
>lioth.debian.org
>
> both are pretty impressive lists. I think I didn't even touch half the
> packages of pkg-multimedia, and didn't even really look inside the
> packages of debian-multimedia. Furthermore I have to admit that in the
> past, I've mainly cared for ffmpeg and sponsored from time to time
> people from pkg-multimedia.

This is something missing from the d-m team at this point. DD manpower to 
sponsor non-DD contributors. Although true collaboration would be ideal, it 
is a first step towards that.

>
> To me at least the pkg-multimedia team is a bit similar to the Debian QA
> Team. There is a pool of packages that are cared for by interested
> people. In the pkg-multimedia team, I don't think we have maintained a
> list with 'active' team members, but more or less 'hoped' that bugs are
> fixed by members of the team that cared. I don't feel there is strong
> commitment by the team member for all packages, but the respective
> maintainers all have their 'pet' packages.
>
> In the end, what does merging the team mean to me? For me, it is
> enlarging the pool of potential people that potentially touch the
> package. This doesn't need to be a bad think, but realistically, we could
> have the same with using the alioth 'collab-maint' "project", no?

I think you answered yourself that question with your next paragraph:

>
> Still having a (common) dedicated multimedia maintainer's team would
> group a set of people interested in a set of related packages.  I think
> this is a desirable goal.

Having a common list is motivating. Activity generates more activity, IME. 
Collab-maint doesn't create this effect.

>
> > First of all, the bikeshed :) : which list and name to use. It was
> > suggested that debian-multimedia be kept as a discussion list about
> > multimedia in debian, and pkg-multimedia for the maintainership of
> > packages. While it sounds nice at first, I think it doesn't make much
> > sense. At least nobody has been using any of both lists for that purpose.
> > I think it should be better if only one list would be kept. I'm not sure
> > what kind of "general" discussion was expected in the d-m list. The kde
> > in debian lists (which follow this dual-list model) show that the
> > "general discussion" one ended up pretty much dead. I also think that
> > Debian Multimedia Team is a cooler name.
>
> I disagree. The Debian Games Team follow the same dual-list approach. It
> turns out that the pkg- list, that listed in the maintainer field is
> pretty crowded with bug mail, while the "general discussion" list is
> pretty much well used for general discussion.
>
> I think the same could work with the "common" multimedia team as well:
>
> debian-multimedia at lists.debian.org: "General Discussion"
> pkg-multimedia-maint at lists.alith.debian.org: "bug flow, etc"
>
> However, I wouldn't mind if the pkg-multimedia-maint list would set a
> Mail-Follow-Up to header to debian-multimedia@ in order to focus
> discussion.

Hmm, so what would be the point of pkg-multimedia-maint if mails are answered 
to debian-multimedia?

>
> > Second, VCS coordination. From what I can see, pkg-multimedia uses svn.
> > d-m also uses svn, but is slowly moving towards git. Is there any
> > interest in the p-m people to move to git? I fear that there is no
> > interest in d-m to move back so svn (am I right in this?). My personal
> > choice would be git, FWIW.
>
> I'm not that happy with svn either, but when Sam founded pkg-multimedia,
> he told me he has chosen svn because that would attract most people as
> svn is the common denominator most people understand. I don't disagree
> with him here. But I also think that this plan didn't work out too
> well. In effect I think we don't have more than 4, perhaps 5 people that
> are actually doing work in pkg-multimedia, and I would be surprised if
> more than half of these people actually favour svn.
>
> I personally favour bzr. but I think I could perhaps do with git as
> well. What I think is way more important than the question which DVCS we
> choose is the exact method we use for maintaining the package. I've
> given that matter some thought and even wrote a wiki page about that:
>
> http://wiki.tauware.de/misc:vcs-packaging
> http://wiki.tauware.de/misc:vcs-packaging2

You might want to look at vcs-pkg.org

>
> Moreover various people have explained their details on how to handle
> patches with a DVCS, and with git in particular. The nice thing about
> svn here is that you don't have that much choice (because svn does not
> offer similar features at all) and discussion on that is avoided. So if
> we want to move to git, we must document very carefully the exact way
> how to use to tool git.

Agreed. Uniformity is key for collaboration across packages.

>
> > Administrative merging of the teams (ie, removing demudi or
> > pkg-multimedia from alioth to use only one) should be done at least right
> > after squeeze (since packages in lenny will point to both places).
>
> Agreed.
>
>
> As a side note, I think we have 2 special packages in pkg-multimedia,
> namely ffmpeg-debian/ffmpeg and vlc. I think we should somehow make it
> clear that they are special. However that should not be the main concern
> for the matter of this discussion, I just wanted to point out that they
> are special maintenance wise.

Why are they special?

Saludos,
Felipe Sateler
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