[aur-general] Trusted user application: Drew DeVault

[Drew DeVault]

The AUR is not community. The expectations are higher for trusted users
- hence the trust. Naturally responding to emails, keeping up with new
releases, etc, is part of the role. That's why it's a *role* - it serves
to define the responsibilities. There is no role for AUR package
maintainer outside of a column in the database. There's no formal
process for becoming an AUR package maintainer, and Arch Linux
explicitly disavows AUR packages as having any standard of quality. You
can't have it both ways - either they're unsupported and maintaining
them as such isn't a problem, or they are supported and we have to
address that can of worms.

And in my opinion, this represents the AUR working as intended. The low
barrier to entry encourages users who may be novices at packaging or
have limited time to invest in their package to give it a shot, then
other users to download these packages and improve the PKGBUILDs,
hopefully sending their improvements back to the maintainer. We already
stress that users need to read and evaluate AUR PKGBUILDs for
themselves. We should be proud that we have a community which encourages
every user to make packages and devote any amount of time they can to
supporting them. In short, part of the AUR's value proposition is its
fast-and-loose criteria for inclusion and maintenance.

The purpose of community and the trusted user system, as far as I
understand, is to provide binary packages from the community that meet a
baseline of quality - wholey different from the AUR. Any packages I
bring on from the AUR will first be improved to meet these standards,
and I commit to a higher degree of responsibility in their maintenance.
I also naturally recognize the value in improving my AUR packages and
intend to do so over time, but I feel that an approach which is
non-committal and less urgent is appropriate here.

I understand the utility in having a history of good AUR packages in
evaluating someone's potential as a trusted user. To this end I'm
happily incorporating your feedback into improving my AUR packages. I
also encourage you to review my history of contributions to Alpine
Linux, where I am the maintainer of a number of binary packages and have
established a history of quality packages, fast updates, and engagement
with the community.

I feel that this thread has devolved considerably into this rabbit hole,
even to the point of ad hominem in some replies. I hope that this has
explained my opinion more clearly and responded to the criticism. If you
still disagree, I think at this point it should just influence your vote
rather than continue the argument.