Packages updates on REVU

[Sarah Hobbs]

Quoting various things here...

 > As you certainly noticed, the list of packages waiting on REVU is
 > really, really long. I've reviewed a few and the update to gutsy is
 > needed for all of them (only a one line change in the changelog, but
 > needed). It'd be nice if  people having  packages on REVU could update
 > the distro target.

Why arent we sorting by last modified date?  That'd certainly help. 
With this, the non-updated packages will fall to the bottom, and 
probably get ignored. It'd be nice if we could archive these - but what 
if the person wants to come back and do some work on it?  (which is 
unlikely after a year or whatever)

 > - "debian-way-of-thinking" (that's not pejorative): some MOTUs take
 > care of their own packages *only* (that's not the way I see this task,
 > and I am pretty sure you agree).

I find this - if a person has no intention of staying around and help to 
fix it, from release to release, and update it, why should I help them 
to get it uploaded in the first place, then eventually file a removal 
request, as it's utterly broken and so out of date?  The more packages 
we have like this, the worse it looks for ubuntu. I'd have to say that 
I'd prefer to be working on fixing stuff, rather than just adding to the 
broken count.

Of course, this does NOT apply to anyone who's actually willing to stay 
around and maintain their packages.  For those that are, I'm happy to 
help them as far as I can, assuming I have time.

 > - too busy to review: making statistics, rebuilds of the whole archive
 > and all this kind of tasks is useful, but not essential. It won't
 > fix nor review issues/packages.

Cron scripts are often very quick - most of this is fully automated, or 
mostly automated..  Reviews are mostly manual.  Hence, this is a 
different kettle of fish.

 > - knowledge issue: reviewing is hard, and reasonably, no one can know
 > all packaging policies. I think that many MOTUs don't 'dare' to review
 > package, because they think it'll call into question their packaging
 > knowledge.

 > I've often seen MOTUs writting that they won't review because they don't
 > feel confortable enough. This shouldn't happen! If you've been granted
 > upload rights, it means that you're able to review as well. being a MOTU
 > doesn't mean that you know everything (i've learnt a lot while 
reviewing).
 > IIRC raphink started a review guide. Could we improve it, and maybe
 > have an review MOTU school session?

I find this.  REVU tools exist somewhere, but I dont know about them. 
Perhaps they should go in the MOTU scripts in bzr?

Also, there's a very specific time when new packages can go in - there's 
no point reviewing now, as a whole lot of deps will change with the new 
packages coming in from debian, with all the syncs.  I'm not sure this 
is documented anywhere.

Sidenote: Barry is awesome at reviewing.  He does so many of them!

non-motu's being able to comment would probably be useful.  The original 
user already can, so the risk of starting a flamewar over the fact that 
the package hasnt been uploaded is about the same.

REVU often doesnt seem to be terribly enjoyable, especially when you get 
things clearly not test built, etc (package failed to build 7 times???) 
- the signal to noise ratio is quite low, you get a lot of failures and 
only some good ones - and people will tend to work on other things that 
actually bring tangible benefit, with their limited time.

That's all for the moment

Hobbsee