[csw-maintainers] Intents to package

[Maciej (Matchek) Blizinski]

No dia 4 de Janeiro de 2011 19:40, Philip Brown <phil at bolthole.com> escreveu:
> Note to others:
> This is of course "how debian does it". But this sort of thing has not
> worked very well for us in the past.
> (because some people post "intent", but then never complete the job.
> This is not directed at Peter: I'm specifically meaning different
> people)
>
> For a package where the maintainer is already marked "retired", any
> maintainer can create a package¸and submit it. Once it passes release
> manager checks, they then automatically become the new maintainer of
> that package.
> There is no prerequisite to post "intent" in this case. Results matter
> more than "intent" :)

I beg to differ.  What did not work for us in the past (and present) is a
very late inspection of a package in which all the decisions have been
already made and all the work has been done.  Imagine a situation in
which there are 2 ways of making a package, and you have to make the
design decision first, and then do a lot of work.  If you want to
change your design decision later on, you basically have to go back to
the start.  The time to discuss that design is before you do the work,
not after.  It is incredible frustrating to have spent a lot of time
on a package which is later rejected.  There are significant negative
psychological effects of this scenario.  You might not observe them
directly, because symptoms are that the frustrated maintainer becomes
quiet... and disappears.  There will be very little or no warning
signals.  If you want to refresh your memory, you can always check the
list of inactive maintainers and think about reasons why they might
have stopped contributing.

It's not about the reasons for which packages are rejected; it's about
the time feedback is given.