AWOL owners and stale packages.

[Michael J. Knox]

Kevin Fenzi wrote:
>>>>>> "Michael" == Michael J Knox <michael at knox.net.nz> writes:
> 
> Michael> Michael J Knox wrote: [snip] check out the achive for the
> Michael> rest ;)
> 
>>>> Let's start with X, maximum packager response time for a bugzilla
>>>> ticket, in which a serious (or normal) bug was reported. Would
>>>> X=14 days be too short? X+Y would cover at least two weekends. I
>>>> mean, if a packager is on a long vacation (several weeks or more)
>>>> and is neglecting package maintenance knowingly, the package would
>>>> be suitable for shared maintainership anyway. And in cases where a
>>>> packager has had an accident or is facing temporary illness (and
>>>> similar things), we're back at what I've written before -- that it
>>>> should be in the packager's best interest that other contributors
>>>> help.
>>>>
>>> I feel, that if an owner is considered "active" then he/she should
>>> be able to at the very least, acknowledge a form of contact, direct
>>> email or BZ, within a 3 week time frame.  However, I think it needs
>>> to be more than one attempt over that time frame. The person
>>> attempting the NMU must provide "proof" IMHO in the form of BZ
>>> reports etc of these attempts.  A formal accounacment of intent on
>>> the extras list would be required, in case someone on the list
>>> knows the current owner where abouts.
> 
> Michael> Ok, So I have somemore time to focus on this.
> 
> Michael> So far I have only had comments from Michael Schwendt, but I
> Michael> would like to hear more from other FE maitainers.
> 
> Michael> What sorts of time frames do people think is reasonable? How
> Michael> many contact attempts should there be?
> 
> How about something like: 
> 
> - When someone sees that a maintainer isn't answering their bugs, not
> answering rebuild requests, emails or the like, they file a bug
> against the package in bugzilla asking for the maintainer to respond. 
> This bug should list the outstanding issues they need to address. 
> 
> - After every 7 days, the reporter adds a comment to the bug asking
> again for response. Others can add to the bug that they also were not
> successfull in contacting the maintainer, or providing additional
> contact information for the maintainer (ie, alternative email, irc,
> etc). 
> 
> - After 2 attempts (2 weeks) of no response from the maintainer, the
> reporter posts to the fedora-extras list with a url to the bug report
> and asks if anyone knows how to contact the maintainer. 
> 
> - After another 7 days (now 3 weeks total), the reporter posts to the
> extras list with the bug link and indicates that all attempts to
> contact the maintainer have failed and that they wish to take over the
> package. Additionally we could require the former maintainers sponsor
> to sign off on the change.
> 
> I think the bug is important to be able to track things, and the
> maintainer should follow email from bugzilla for their packages
> anyhow.

That's exactly how I foresee the process, but probably a 4 week wait.

I am not sure the reasoning for having the previous sponsor resign off 
on the package when it should be required that the NMU be done onl by 
existing FE developers.

Michael