[Soc-coordination] GSOC idea for next year: undusting some packages

[Stefano Zacchiroli]

On Wed, Oct 01, 2008 at 10:03:24PM +0200, Michael Vogt wrote:
> > My schedule has recently opened up and so I have time to contribute
> > and would like to help, but just finding the documentation of how to
> > do so with APT is quite difficult. Perhaps a Teams page on the wiki
> > similar to http://wiki.debian.org/Teams/Dpkg would help?
> 
> That is a good idea. I created a (initial) page on
> http://wiki.debian.org/Teams/Apt - everyone is welcome to add to it :)

This is a wonderful start, thanks!

More generally, my contribution to this discussion is that the
"typical" step to be taken in similar cases haven't been taken yet
(AFAIK): post a request for help on d-d/d-d-a.

I've had a similar experience with Vim, which is not strictly speaking
as "core" as apt, but it is a package in which a packaging bug can
potentially annoy way more people than one in apt. The next-to-last
"main" maintainer of Vim, Norbert, at some time decided he wanted to
move on and posted a call for help. Something like 10 people stepped
in and did a lot of bug triaging in the first months, in the long term
a strict subset continued maintaining Vim and a new "main" maintainer,
James, took the lead, with a few others helpers, including myself.

Point is, for "core" packages, people really do think that they just
work and that they are not up to the task of maintaining them, while
none of the two is necessarily true.

What is blocking you, apt maintainers, to file a RFH bug, Cc-ing
d-d(-a) and explicitly asking for help?  In doing so I suggest to try
fading away potential fears about "how hard" is to contribute, but I'm
sure you are well-aware of stuff like that, having been there :-)

Cheers.

-- 
Stefano Zacchiroli -*- PhD in Computer Science \ PostDoc @ Univ. Paris 7
zack@{upsilon.cc,pps.jussieu.fr,debian.org} -<>- http://upsilon.cc/zack/
I'm still an SGML person,this newfangled /\ All one has to do is hit the
XML stuff is so ... simplistic  -- Manoj \/ right keys at the right time
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