On Thu, Sep 9, 2010 at 2:24 PM, Daenyth Blank <daenyth+arch@gmail.com> wrote:
On Thu, Sep 9, 2010 at 15:22, Christopher Brannon <cmbrannon79@gmail.com> wrote:
Indeed I have. Let the discussion period begin.
-- Chris
PS. That's a very well-written application!
I have nothing to add except to concur with Chris. Nice application :)
Hey Peter. I'm just going to reply to some of the things you said.
1) Maintain popular packages well and reliably.
I currently maintain 7 packages in the AUR, and am interested particularly in things relating to science and research (e.g. latex, octave, sage, bibliographic management stuff like mendeley and kbib), as well as KDE things (I've been building and using KDE since version 1.0). And while I think it's ideal when people maintain things that they use themselves, this wouldn't restrict me from taking on other packages that I don't use.
See my current packages here: http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?SeB=m&K=petelewis
The only packages that you mentioned your interests in that aren't maintained in community are mendeley and kbib. You do have very few packages albeit nice and clean ones. I think that you should demonstrate the final thing you mentioned by adopting some more packages and cleaning them up so that you at least have 20. Ofc this is not required and it's just my opinion. (I think the minimum amount of packages any user should have before applying to a TU position is 20 nice and clean ones) I'm just suggesting this so that I know that when TU's apply (not just picking on you) that they at least look like they have some minimal experience that I expect a TU to have.
2) Promote Arch and the TU scheme.
As I said, I think we need more TUs, while maintaining our high standard. I'd like to promote the TU scheme and get more skilled Arch users to take on maintaining the packages that they use. I think a world where more people maintain a small number of packages each in [community] will lead to a bigger and higher quality [community] repo. We should advertise, with the aim of
I agree.
having many more TUs. This also means that we shouldn't be afraid of voting people down if they're not yet ready, and give feedback to help them improve and invite them to apply again later. We all benefit from this.
Now I know you can't be angry at me for the previous comments :)
3) Maintain / improve processes and package standards.
I think that standard processes and packages are very important, and can make life using Arch a lot easier. It's also important that the processes are right, and this means attention to detail. Things like package naming and categories fall into this. I think a large part of the job of a TU is to keep the AUR clean and clear, and I would spend time helping to achieve this. I have in mind that bits of additional functionality, such as to enabling deletion requests to be handled through the web interface, perhaps duplicate flagging and package renaming would be useful and make the job of a TU easier. Over time, I would investigate implementing things like this.
Awesome.
Also on processes, I'm a bit of a geek for democratic stuff, constitutions and bye-laws and things. I've worked with a couple of quite large democratic organisations on their election and decision-making rules and would be interested in helping to keep these working well for the good of Arch and us all too. Again, it's important to get the rules right, but in addition to hard rules, often establishing good etiquette is just as important (but IMO preferably without going down the Ubuntu route of canned responses). I think Arch people are good at this kind of thing, but I think it always helps to have people who are interested in keeping things fresh.
I agree.
If there are any questions, I'm very happy to try to answer them.
Can I get your secret beer recipe?
Cheers, and thanks for reading.
Cheers!