clarification on fedora accounts and sponsorship

[Michael Schwendt]

On Mon, 28 Apr 2008 19:00:06 +0300, Pavel Shevchuk wrote:

> You can have fedora account and not be sponsored (for example if
> you're doc writer or artist). "Sponsored" should be read as "knows how
> to package stuff"

No, let's not change the meaning of "sponsored".

It really only means that another contributor (with sponsor status) agreed
on opening the door for somebody else to get access to relevant Fedora
infrastructure in order to be able to get productive (to what level the
sponsor must monitor the sponsored person is unknown -- I know that some
sponsors do it while others don't).

The decision to sponsor somebody may be based on prior demonstration of
packaging skills, but could also be based on a trust relationship,
"knowing eachother", being involved upstream, or the energy/momentum of a
motivated contributor, who wants to become a Fedora packager. "Sponsored"
does not necessarily mean "knows how to package stuff". That's not
well-defined anyway. For example, it's too easy for someone to fetch an
existing spec file from the web, customise it a little bit and use it for
a Fedora Review request and a call for sponsorship. It's not that if
one or two packages pass review, after your reviewer told you 20 things
to fix, you "know how to package stuff". It's just that if you show that
you're willing to maintain your package(s) with or without the help of
other people, you increase the chance of finding a sponsor.

We've found long ago that it would be too much of a hurdle, if every
potential contributor had to demonstrate packaging skills through a
long review process of several *new* packages. The more packages in the
collection, the less likely you find stuff that's not packaged yet.
Therefore, and provided that you find a sponsor actually, demonstrating
packaging capabilities is not the only way how to get sponsored.

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