[Mageia-bugsquad] Package adoption campaign, 3 months later

[Samuel Verschelde]

Hi,

I consider the (first phase of) the adoption campaign finished, so here are some 
stats about it, and an opening for discussion about what to do next.

We had 4931 packages without a maintainer, we now have 2043, so I think we can 
say that the campaign was a success in this regard : nearly 3000 source 
packages have found a maintainer.

See http://pkgsubmit.mageia.org/data/unmaintained.txt for the list of orphan 
packages.

Out of 57 packagers with submit rights (I might have missed a few that got 
submit rights recently, but it wont change the results much):
- 35 are now "full" (or even took too much packages)
- 11 answered at some point that they were going to have a look at the list 
and maybe grab more packages, but didn't give me feedback after that, even 
after a new mail sent. We can suppose that they are now "full" too.
- 6 are inactive (no packaging in months)
- 5 well-known active packagers never answered in 3 months either to the 
mailing list or to my direct mails (sent at @mageia.org addresses), which is a 
bit disappointing considering the amount of time I put into this campaign, but 
I want to thank the vast majority who was really willing to help in this 
campaign. 

The conclusion is that for most packagers the maintainers database is now up 
to date, with maybe a few more orphan packages that could find a maintainer, 
but not a lot.

I would have liked that there be no need for such a campaign, but events 
showed that there's a real need for someone who sends reminders to the mailing 
lists, pings packagers, points out important orphan packages. Waiting for 
things to solve themselves doesn't work :) However, this demands a lot of 
energy and I would be glad if someone could replace me in this task, because I 
lack time to develop Mageia App Db. I volunteered only because there was a gap 
to fulfill, but would be glad to see someone else become the official Orphan 
Packages Protector.

His/her work would be the following:
- identifiy (with bugsquad's help) the orphan packages that have lots of 
unresolved bugs or are severely outdated,
- do the same for packages that have a maintainer but are in a similar 
situation,
- try to find packagers or apprentices to take care of them. Not necessarily 
make them become maintainer, but at least solve users bugs.
- try to find maintainers for orphan packages.

I'm willing to help with advice or tools but would like to not be the person 
in charge, if possible, so that I can really make the Mageia App Db available 
before Mageia 2.

Does someone volunteer? It is a job that demands a lot of energy and 
confidence, but I think it would be a really useful contribution. Bugsquad is 
already doing part of this, but they have other duties, so someone dedicated 
to this task could maybe help.

Best regards

Samuel Verschelde