Co-maintainersip policy for Fedora Packages

[Greg Dekoenigsberg]

On Fri, 26 Jan 2007, Thorsten Leemhuis wrote:

> Greg Dekoenigsberg schrieb:
>> On Fri, 26 Jan 2007, Thorsten Leemhuis wrote:
>>>> What about an IRC teach-in?  What if we had a couple of packagers who,
>>>> once a month or so, took a couple of hours to run a packaging tutorial in
>>>> real time?
>>> "Learning by doing" and especially the part "*making errors* and learn
>>> from them" (¹) is IMHO important, especially for packaging.
>>> In other words: I don't think a IRC packaging tutorial will be a big
>>> help as those that will give that tutorial will probably be experts
>>> already and experts often forgot all those small errors they did in the
>>> beginning.
>> What if we're teaching by leading newbies through the packaging of actual
>> orphaned/wishlist packages?
>
> I for one would not be interested to package something I don't even use
> and/or I have no interest in. And it IMHO might lead to bad package quality.
>
> So encouraging new packagers to do that is IMHO not a good idea.

Duh.  :)

Of course *that* isn't a good idea, Thorsten.  We wouldn't be mandating 
forcing new packagers to package stuff they don't like.  That would be 
stupid.

In fact, one of the greatest potential motivators for a new packager is 
simple: they can't find a package in Fedora that they really, really want. 
The key question: how do we turn this motivation into action?

It could be as simple as a wiki page: NewPackagerTraining, let's say. 
The page refers to some reading material, maybe, so that new packagers 
have some homework to do and aren't wasting potential instructor time. 
People then sign up for "classes", and they each list the one package that 
they think they'd like to take a shot at packaging.  And then, once a 
month, we run a session with them, where the Professors:

   a. Review the basics of packaging;
   b. Walk through the process (get the bits, write the spec file, etc.);
   c. Answer newbie questions;
   d. Act as sponsors for the ones who "get it".

Sure, the best way of learning, ultimately, is to learn by doing.  But I 
suspect there are lots of folks who would respond very positively to some 
direct hands-on work -- including some very smart people who may just need 
a little bit of assurance.

--g

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