[Sugar-devel] core maintainers

[David Farning]

On Mon, Jun 21, 2010 at 6:57 AM, Martin Dengler
<martin at martindengler.com> wrote:
> David,
>
> When you have the time, some clarity here would be appreciated.
>
> Martin
>
> On Sat, Jun 12, 2010 at 12:49:33AM +0100, Martin Dengler wrote:
>> On Fri, Jun 11, 2010 at 01:58:32PM -0500, David Farning wrote:
>> > Over the past couple of months, Activity Central has been establishing
>> > a network of developers to provide service and support for
>> > deployments.
>>
>> I assume they're paid, otherwise why would you (Activity Central) not
>> just "establish" such people into the normal SugarLabs network.

Some developers receive a salary from AC, some are paid by
deployments, and some are paid by third parties.  The significant
difference is that Sugar Labs is entirely voluntary (as it should be.)
  The developers for the deployment support network work on particular
task and bugs which _someone_ is willing to pay to be fixed.

It is the standard upstream downstream division of labor.

>> > On Fri, Jun 11, 2010 at 12:04 PM, Walter Bender <walter.bender at gmail.com> wrote:
>> > > What is "Deployment Support Network"?
>> >
>> > Sugar Labs has expressed the importance of more code contributions
>> > from deployments.  Deployments have expressed an interest in fixing
>> > their own bugs.  The Deployment Support Network fills that gap.
>>
>> What gap?  The gap between getting code from deployments and...
>> deployments who want to write code?

Many deployments would like to participate in the upstream process but
for some reason don't.  The biggest hurdle is that it takes time,
money and effort to push things upstream.  As such many deployments
are sitting on local patches... or worse just not bothering to fix
issues.

>> What is "Deployment Support Network"?  In particular, who are they and
>> how/why are they distict from Sugar Labs "members" (basically anyone
>> who wants to submit a patch or write an email to sugar-devel@)?

The Deployment Support Network is a subset of Sugar Labs members who
work on tasks requested and paid for by some body interested in having
those task accomplished.

>> > Initial, I had reservations about the maintainship roles these
>> > developers would hold at Sugar Labs.  In light of the current backlog
>> > of patches and the heavy burden a few core developers are holding, I
>> > would like  work with the Sugar Labs development team to determine the
>> > process for experienced developers to become maintainers.
>>
>> You've totally avoided Walter's question (AFAICS) and then gingerly
>> formulated an missive that, despite some mysterious reservations,
>> seems to imply that you think the "[SL] development team" will resist
>> having "experienced developers [...become] maintainers".  Why would
>> you think that?

Because change is disruptive.  The Sugar Labs code base development is
premised on individuals "Scratching their own itch" by writing code
which is reviewed and committed.

Now, I come along and throw a wrench in the gears:)  I can't write
good code.... But I can provide incentives and raise money to hire
others who might not otherwise be able to participate as much in a
open source project like Sugar Labs.

Not only do Tomeu and the other developers have to figure out how to
deal with the influx of new developers.  As a community Sugar Labs has
to figure out how to deal with AC (and Me).  I hope the over the next
couple of months we can figure out how to do that in a mutually
beneficial manner.

david