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[Summary] GLEP 41: Making Arch Testers official Gentoo Staff
Leave to gleps to make long threads ;).

So anyways, here's what the deal is so far:

Simon Stelling(blubb) starts out by producing the glep. For those of you that
have no idea, arch testers were something mainly promoted by the amd64 team.
Basically, arch testers are non gentoo devs that do architecture testing and
nothing more. Testing ebuilds, helping with bugs, that kind of thing.

So basically, Simon wants arch testers to become official devs (with limited
restrictions). They've taken the staff quiz already, and he wants them to be
officially @gentoo.org-ified and _read only_ access to the portage tree. If
they want read/write access they do the usual stuff to become a dev and all
is happy.

Ciaran McCreesh(ciaranm) then comes in asking for numbers. You know, how many
are arch testers, how many went inactive, that sort of thing...

Martin Schlemmer(azarah) agrees with Ciaran and states that these numbers
should be provided before addressing the glep. Should the numbers be
reasonable, a probation period should be created to see how it all works out.

Olivier Crete(tester) comes up with some numbers [1] and asks about council
voting privileges.

Stephen P. Becker(geoman) that this is short of giving them commit access to
the tree. He would like arch testers to be somewhat of a probation period
from being a full dev.

Simon Stelling(blubb) says that that's fine and dandy, but also notes that not
all Arch Testers(I'm lazy and will call them AT's now..) want to become devs,
and some AT's will still be left.

Martin Schlemmer(azarah) comments that all the above appear ok, and asks if
cvs has the access control to handle read only for the main gentoo-x86 cvs
branch. He's ok with the whole @gentoo.org email assignment though. One
ponit he makes is about the arch tests, in order for users to become an amd64
dev, they have to go through the arch test too. He just wants to make sure
the arch tests are solid enough.

Donnie Berkholz(spyderous) wants clarification on users having to become arch
testers in order to become arch devs.

Stephen P. Becker(geoman) still thinks that arch testers should become devs,
and that if a mips arch tester came along and was good, they'd skip steps and
make said person a dev.

Homer Parker(hparker) states that this glep was made for the arch testers that
don't wish to become devs, because of time restraints or commitment. Homer
also notes that AT's have been effectively utilized for amd64 and ppc.

Stephen P. Becker(geoman) questions why these arch testers should become devs
if they get more access than some other devs get.

Homer Parker(hparker) asks what privileges that at's get that most devs don't.

Simon Stelling (blubb) posts some facts, which I'll put here because they're
short and important:

"As of now, amd64 has 20 ATs, 6 of them became devs, 1 is inactive. The rest
stayed AT. The "oldest" of the remaining has been AT since February, the
youngest since Aug 23, so I think it definitively is."

Homer Parker(hparker) states ppc has 3-4 AT's

Joseph Jezak(josejx) clarifies ppc has 3 devs, and 1 has become an official
dev.

Simon Stelling(blubb) clarifies that users should become AT members before
becoming a dev, but emphasizes should, as this can be different in some
situations.

Homer Parker(hparker) mentions that the AT before dev requirement has worked
well with amd64, and that if they see an AT member with skills, they will
approach them about becomming a dev.

So there's your summary of glep 41 so far.

If this gets any larger I'll make a part II :p.

[1] http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/base/amd64/tests/index.xml?part=1&chap=1

Chris White
Re: [Summary] GLEP 41: Making Arch Testers official Gentoo Staff [ In reply to ]
On Tue, 2005-09-13 at 15:55 +0900, Chris White wrote:
> So basically, Simon wants arch testers to become official devs (with
> limited
> restrictions). They've taken the staff quiz already, and he wants
> them to be
> officially @gentoo.org-ified and _read only_ access to the portage
> tree. If
> they want read/write access they do the usual stuff to become a dev
> and all
> is happy.

Minor clarification, they currently take the ebuild.quiz.. We're
working on one more QA/testing related.. Which of course will go before
everyone to be kicked around before implementing.

--
Homer Parker
Gentoo/AMD64 Arch Tester Strategic Lead
hparker@gentoo.org

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gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [Summary] GLEP 41: Making Arch Testers official Gentoo Staff [ In reply to ]
Homer Parker posted <1126570815.10578.13.camel@localhost>, excerpted
below, on Mon, 12 Sep 2005 19:20:15 -0500:

> On Tue, 2005-09-13 at 15:55 +0900, Chris White wrote:
>> So basically, Simon wants arch testers to become official devs (with
>> limited
>> restrictions). They've taken the staff quiz already, and he wants them
>> to be
>> officially @gentoo.org-ified and _read only_ access to the portage tree.
>> If
>> they want read/write access they do the usual stuff to become a dev and
>> all
>> is happy.
>
> Minor clarification, they currently take the ebuild.quiz.. We're
> working on one more QA/testing related.. Which of course will go before
> everyone to be kicked around before implementing.

This relates to the voting question as well. I'm looking at being an AT,
but am taking it slow (HP would probably say glacial, at this point =8^).
[1] Looking at the quiz, there's a *LOT* on there about the organization
and stuff that I really hadn't expected. This would be good for voting,
but IMO, ATs really shouldn't need /either/ all the org questions /or/
voting privs. As someone else mentioned, one of the reasons ATs decide
/not/ to become devs is because they aren't interested in all the
organizational politics involved.

So... I'd say scrap at least some of the organizational questions (in the
new AT quiz), and by the same standard, do NOT allow ATs to vote. It's a
fairly short step from AT to dev for those that want it, for voting or
tree level write access anyway, and I don't believe the AT role needs
voting privs.

Gentoo mail addresses would be a nice touch. Official would be nice,
whether that means "staff" (perhaps specifically defined in the GLEP as
staff without voting privs, if the above is taken), or
officially-recognized non-staff, doesn't matter to me, anyway (it might to
some ATs). RO (no write needed or indeed wanted, here) tree access would
likely be the most useful feature being proposed, however, as I've already
bumped into that "impatient waiting" problem with rsync, and I'm not even
doing serious AT type testing as yet.

[1] It's worth noting that "slow but steady" is a defining characteristic
of my personality. It took me 3 months to switch to Linux, and another
three to switch to Gentoo, after I'd decided to go for it. In both cases,
however, there was no going back, and I had and practiced the knowledge
many others take years to build. Likewise with AT, it's taking me months
to get there, but I expect I'll be good at it when I get there, and likely
stay AT for a year, maybe two or more, before I even consider full dev, if
I do so at all.

--
Duncan - List replies preferred. No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master." Richard Stallman in
http://www.linuxdevcenter.com/pub/a/linux/2004/12/22/rms_interview.html


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