Hi, Am Wed, Dec 04, 2024 at 11:18:23AM -0700 schrieb Soren Stoutner: > Robert,
Thanks a lot to Robert to ask here on the list and sorry for my delayed answer. I had to catch up with real life but since the question was originally to me in person I feel the need to finally get involved into the thread. I lot of very good answers were given. My specific thanks goes to Mechtilde who wrote (another) nice documentation as well as Debian Brasil members who cared a lot to the Brasilian community which is objectively reflected in the number of Brasilians contributing to Debian. > I appreciate your addition to the discussion. +1 I will not comment on the other answers since I felt these are quite complete in itself. I'd like to add some remark to Soren's mail. > On Wednesday, December 4, 2024 8:53:07 AM MST Robert Chéramy wrote: > > 1. ... > “There are seventeen different > ways to create a Debian package. We are only going to consider fifteen of > them > here. Every one is different. You should just use the one that works best > for > your situation. We can’t be bothered to explain to you how you can tell > which > one will be best for your situation, but you will know it when you see it. > Also, most of these workflows are incompatible with each other, and everyone > who uses any workflow besides the one I like is an idiot. Also, I can’t be > bothered to explain all the intermediary steps or any corner cases, but > you’ll > figure them out as your go.” I agree that this can be confusing for newcomers. However, as mentioned in follow-up discussions, there are valid reasons for *some* differences in workflows. The challenge is even more complex because it's not just about workflows--it's a matrix of "workflows × toolsets." > I have written in other venues about the need for Debian to pick one > canonical > workflow. This workflow could then be documented in detail, including corner > cases, and presented in a step-by-step guide that doesn’t assume any previous > knowledge about Debian. There are several people diligently working on > trying > to get Debian to consolidate on one (or a few) accepted workflows, but the > resistance from some developers who have their other favorite workflows is > intense. In my personal opinion, for the good of the project and the need to > attract far greater than 1,000 active Debian Developers, we need to overcome > our personal workflow opinions and consolidate on one choice, even if we > consider choice to be technically inferior to our preferred option. I appreciate your vision of an ideal world and share it, though I recognize it's unattainable. While some barriers are insurmountable, others might be overcome. I've chosen to focus on the latter, even though it greatly exceeds my available spare time. To give some examples: I'm working on trying to get rid of dh-buildinfo, replace cdbs by dh, convert d/copyright to machine readable DEP-5 format etc. basically following the Debian Trends (https://trends.debian.net/) > 2. A vast amount of the step-by-step documentation written for beginners > regarding how to package for the first time is subtly outdated in ways that > become very confusing to beginners. Usually, at the time the documentation > was written, it was correct. But things change quickly in Debian, and often > nobody revisits and updates these howto guides. > > I think that if we want to get serious about ever attracting a large number > of > new Debian Developers, we need a team of people (probably, again, a DPL > delegation) ... My response is similar to the suggestion of a DPL delegation for mentors: I don't believe a delegation would help in finding people to do the work. The issue, in my view, is that we are all volunteers, choosing tasks we enjoy in our spare time. For me, that's fixing bugs, packaging, and even teaching packaging. Writing good documentation doesn't excite me as much, so I don't focus on it. Perhaps the criticism of insufficient documentation reflects a shortage of volunteers who genuinely enjoy and excel at this important task. As for what a DPL could do: I could theoretically fund someone to write and maintain good documentation. But no, I'd rather not open that can of worms here. Instead, I'd prefer to encourage people like Mechthilde to continue their excellent work and help promote it. As always in Debian: if you see an important task that needs doing, take the initiative and do it. Running around explaining to volunteers that work is left undone doesn't solve the problem. Kind regards Andreas. -- https://fam-tille.de
