XPost: linux.debian.project

Luke Faraone <lfaraone@debian.org> writes:

The rationale given when I joined as ftpassistant (c. 2012) for not publicising decisions e.g. in the ITP was to avoid publishing
potentially harshly-worded and embarassing reviews to maintainers in
public (like pointing out that you missed a fairly obvious license declaration, incompatibility, or packaging step).

I am welcome to feedback from the project as to whether this outweighs
the benefit to having past decisions available for public
consultation.

If that is really the only rationale, I think the reviews ought to be
public. As an offender of fairly obvious and embarrasing license
mistakes, and other NEW packaging problems, I believe the only
sustainable way to improve is to have more eyes looking at things and contributing and doing things in public allows people to learn how the
process works, and participate.

Charles Plessy's effort to have a pre-NEW review team to do such work
seems like a good start (although I never figured out how I would submit
a package to that effort).

I can see the need for doing private reviews with private feedback
though. Maybe what is needed is not so much to change ftp-master's
private review process but to have this public pre-review process to
smoothen the process a bit.

/Simon

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----

iQNoBAEWCAMQFiEEo8ychwudMQq61M8vUXIrCP5HRaIFAmfOuXgUHHNpbW9uQGpv c2Vmc3Nvbi5vcmfCHCYAmDMEXJLOtBYJKwYBBAHaRw8BAQdACIcrZIvhrxDBkK9f V+QlTmXxo2naObDuGtw58YaxlOu0JVNpbW9uIEpvc2Vmc3NvbiA8c2ltb25Aam9z ZWZzc29uLm9yZz6IlgQTFggAPgIbAwULCQgHAgYVCAkKCwIEFgIDAQIeAQIXgBYh BLHSvRN1vst4TPT4xNc89jjFPAa+BQJl/YgIBQkLehFUAAoJENc89jjFPAa+CboA +wUa06RD5e5VTCxvSWtPS75Wq2qBeYGZnf0jvUMxa2n4AP4xkUeAPPnNuMsTm2fs FCDIGaEM2Yn6Vb2huzzT1Fw/BLgzBFySz4EWCSsGAQQB2kcPAQEHQOxTCIOaeXAx I2hIX4HK9bQTpNVei708oNr1Klm8qCGKiPUEGBYIACYCGwIWIQSx0r0Tdb7LeEz0 +MTXPPY4xTwGvgUCZf2IKwUJC3oQqgCBdiAEGRYIAB0WIQSjzJyHC50xCrrUzy9R cisI/kdFogUCXJLPgQAKCRBRcisI/kdFoqdMAQCgH45aseZgIrwKOvUOA9QfsmeE 8GZHYNuFHmM9FEQS6AD6A4x5aYvoY6lo98pgtw2HPDhmcCXFItjXCrV4A0GmJA4J ENc89jjFPAa+GcYA/26YQY05bLtnXiIjTiAzrGQrRXxTHPA8Av7TDFHvIetWAP9s HSoU8OfTwmTiEnGwLlsV7QJclZg3YNz/Ypcp9TqQBrg4BFySz2oSCisGAQQBl1UB BQEBB0AxlRumDW6nZY7A+VCfek9VpEx6PJmdJyYPt3lNHMd6HAMBCAeIfgQYFggA JgIbDBYhBLHSvRN1vst4TPT4xNc89jjFPAa+BQJl/YgwBQkLehDGAAoJENc89jjF PAa+phoA/jrDqIrl/55vUMBhIQv+TP635d2iCTEnyFmbUcP9+gh6APoDsXalVd2c OGxQtSC+TF8PkZMn1TLkJKAjVxr+xx40AgAKCRBRcisI/kdFovSxAP96hjWg7Fvx eLBWquSPkeSA/n1Vz9jdflPZ0AsUllOvmwEA0hzy9xfhcdiEkma4dm22A0LwxIIH dFT2zMyUrBuSawE=
=2dj5
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

XPost: linux.debian.project

Luke Faraone <lfaraone@debian.org> writes:

The rationale given when I joined as ftpassistant (c. 2012) for not publicising decisions e.g. in the ITP was to avoid publishing
potentially harshly-worded and embarassing reviews to maintainers in
public (like pointing out that you missed a fairly obvious license declaration, incompatibility, or packaging step).

I am welcome to feedback from the project as to whether this outweighs
the benefit to having past decisions available for public consultation.

If the price for the ability to learn from the mistakes of others is an occasional dose of public humiliation, then that's a price I'm happy to
pay (and I speak as someone that has a talent for making trivial errors).

Also, we claim in the Debian Social Contract that we don't hide problems.

How about if the (possibly harsh) reasoning were published in a form
that only directly tied it to the package name, such that search engines
would not instantly and permanently place that comment on one's CV?

I'd imagine that the stigma of a rejection would pretty quickly become
an understanding that everyone makes mistakes occasionally, which may be
a good way of avoiding new contributors becoming intimidated by the
assumption that everyone else is doing a perfect job.

Cheers, Phil.
--
Philip Hands -- https://hands.com/~phil

--=-=-Content-Type: application/pgp-signature; name="signature.asc"

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----

iQIzBAEBCgAdFiEE3/FBWs4yJ/zyBwfW0EujoAEl1cAFAmfOw0IACgkQ0EujoAEl 1cD5Qg//fmT3z/OYr/SBJJQMd62brXgn6k+zh95sJtGWFewMFOAo4+AgTr973Wwe 6GagXofmmKtgwzhiGarffjPeXOYOrTAPHWmrlENqskPiI7+691M3HjFBxi7jhG7v P58lKhFEtjtSpPK5mMP+f6oP5a/VIZdssOxMRENMYLXBBA8LoQAVioPj/oEL7lO2 H19qV7Ij/O8cjM3d78vgW9qXkTQH2KENgiktZX9vP/wh30G3FWD/klMO5RV4krtj jVR9OxP7cjPJITPyUu7hBCVmSmQ+1+mNVYR8nki5tDoH6jPjjIYjEIrTEpybc5xm OAl3c/0bqfcKWfMjKKkO0BD8jCjcT7DHf6JhDJprzIf7L+/0rj4/TRxsV/ijjL29 5vPikkCBjXaUCujJCFVN6UNLYPFlFeM9km1SOR3IKUEsSoPD7gRQZBMPOnYt4m0B D0sxeKZ+X2g98lmRVl9H+JBr2yxiEVqVEFAwKeC0FqX9j4+ybfrkPb8dpIgOdsLX CQObR4dFKV+OdPt+TMUaTHFC/NmMSE5ilPKwWWDaW/WD0WSNncrAS6I3dwIsIRfS KjHxVyaHKvMl497aJjN91ABPJ1fVwwsA3jA9gtF9IuzkOgE9mmKn3MgX4Gf47FhX 89L6Ey4SFU5w/HOvKiDYL/u1f1ZjkXYTAbszpqP7FNPiK4G1RDs┌6l
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway

XPost: linux.debian.project

I've recently been trying to help rescue a package that is dropped for
Trixie, partly for technical reasons (source package split means a round
trip through NEW) and party for license reasons (some uncertainty about copyright of some icons, which have been in the archive for decades, but
since a NEW round-trip is required, this is a reject-worthy bug now)

On Mon Mar 10, 2025 at 7:57 AM GMT, Luke Faraone wrote:

We discard the source tarballs and changes files on REJECT so there is nothing to `debdiff`. This partially happens for legal reasons: if we determine a package is not suitable for the archive then we may no
longer have the legal right to retain it on ftp-master.

That makes sense. In my case, I still don't have access to the source
package that was rejected, but that could be solved if the (very busy) maintainer uploaded it somewhere else (e.g. to Salsa). Since it's never
been in Debian (technically), there's no historic packages to look at
(yet).

The rationale given when I joined as ftpassistant (c. 2012) for not publicising decisions e.g. in the ITP was to avoid publishing
potentially harshly-worded and embarassing reviews to maintainers in
public (like pointing out that you missed a fairly obvious license declaration, incompatibility, or packaging step).

I am welcome to feedback from the project as to whether this outweighs
the benefit to having past decisions available for public consultation.

I had to ask nicely for someone with privileges to send me the ftp team
reject notes to get some clue as to what needs fixing. So I would
definitely prefer if they were open by default.


Thanks for your efforts!

--
Please do not CC me for listmail.

👱🏻 Jonathan Dowland
✎ jmtd@debian.org
🔗 https://jmtd.net

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)