On Tue, 2023-06-13 at 19:11:15 +0200, Sebastien Bacher wrote: > (for context that's an email I sent the techboard before I joined the > board, the discussion picked up recently and TB members agreed that we > should have it on the mailing list)
See inline below for the responses for my reply to this original email. > > Dear Technical Board, > > I would like to bring that topic for consideration. I believe that the > lack of open application process for core Ubuntu teams (Archive Admin, > Release Team, SRU team) is hurting the project and has lead to an > ongoing under-staffing of those groups. > FWIW I tend to agree, but I wonder if the idea of under-staffing is more of a perception than a real, experienced issue - I would be keen to know if those teams themselves would agree. Do existing team members feel they are too busy to keep up with the demands placed on them, and so would benefit from adding new team members? > I'm unsure how to best approach the topic so I'm going to list a few > examples of situations I've witnessed or experienced and found problematic. > > 1. Could be an obvious one but the Archive and SRU teams don't have > defined contact points, which makes quite difficult for anyone to engage > with them. You can't try to IRC ping and hope someone reply but it is > not great I agree, but given the decentralised nature of most of the Ubuntu development teams, and a lack of more coordinated systems / tooling, I wonder if there are many other alternatives? > > 2. Laney's application to become Archive Admin > > The core teams members are usually quite busy people. That's a topic > that is coming on regular basis as people try to restore some sort of > on-duty-rotation for the members, which has not had much success in > recent years. > > Iain proposed to join the ~ubuntu-archive team to help in early 2020. We > had a in person discussion with several of the archive admins in > Frankfurt in March at a Canonical event where everyone agreed that Iain > is trusted and should be added, yet we couldn't move to the next step > since there is no documented process to follow. Since we were a bit lost > on how to get that moving I sent a group email end of June asking us to > vote on adding Iain hoping it would unblock the situation. We got most > people replying with a +1 position, then Steve replied by requesting > that Iain got trained with an existing archive admin on specific tasks > before being added. He also added that > > 'Regarding process: the de facto process up to now has been that you > convince one of the administrators of the ~ubuntu-archive team, and > you're in.' > > 3. Christian Ehrhardt applied to join the Archive team as well this > year, he started by emailing me/a few others with an emailed titled > 'What does it take to become an Archive-Admin?' > > which included those questions > > 'That made me wonder what exactly it would take to become an > ArchiveAdmin myself. > There are plenty of docs about how to become a CoreDev or any of the > lower tier upload permissions. But the ArchiveAdmin role seems to be > freestyle - at least from what I can tell from the Wiki. > > Thereby I was wondering - and hereby asking you - about: > - Are there things considered a strict requirement or qualification to > become an AA? > - Is there a formal process to become an Archive Admin? > - Are there regular rotations on AA-tasks like NBS, New queue, ...? > - if so how much time per week is expected/required?' > > To which he got as a reply > > 'So the Archive Admin team, similarly to the Ubuntu SRU and Ubuntu > Release teams, is a strict invite-only team with no formal process of > becoming one. The main reason is that being an AA gives a lot of power > in Ubuntu, basically giving full control over the Ubuntu archive > as-is, so it's not something anyone can get by just requesting > membership. This is also why there is no formal process as we do not > want it to be possible for arbitrary people to apply by themselves.' > > > That's not the first time I hear that position and I don't believe the > claim to be true. I don't see how having an open process would lower the > bar? The same people would take the decision of who is getting added. > The application could go through a private list if needed. I also don't > believe that we would have such a flow of low qualified applicants. On a similar note, I recall xnox asking about becoming an AA sometime in the past as well but unfortunately I can't recall the specifics - however my vague recollection is that he was told something similar - you need to wait to be asked to join, you don't just ask yourself. What I find a bit frustrating about this (as an outsider to these teams) is that these are the most powerful teams in the distribution yet the processes around the teams themselves are quite vague and lack transparency. This also serves as quite solid (but I highly suspect, unintended) gate-keeping which I think is something that in general we should try and avoid in Ubuntu. (It may appear that Security could also be counted there too but (I like to think that) it is clearer that it is only Canonical employees, not community members, which make up that team). > > 4. Those teams are understaffed and it is problematic for the project. > > Random recent quotes from IRC > > https://irclogs.ubuntu.com/2022/10/06/%23ubuntu-release.html#t09:28 > GunnarHj The kinetic unapproved queue is longer than I would have > expected a week before Final Freeze. Specifically gnome-user-docs is a > concern of mine, but there are quite a few others. Is there a plan to > attend to the queue soon? 09:28 > xnox GunnarHj: i think a few release team people are out. > ... > Eickmeyer[m]ginggs: I'm confused too. AIUI, the release team (partially > meaning you) is supposed to be processing the unapproved queue this time > of the release cycle. It hasn't budged all week. > ... > rs2009: am interested in joining the release team, but wasn't sure how > to apply > > https://irclogs.ubuntu.com/2022/10/17/%23ubuntu-devel.html > pitti: what's up with SRUs? looks like the jammy queue hasn't been > processed since mid-August? > > > 5. Another anecdotal fact, > https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-release/+members shows only 3 members > added in the last 6 years and they are all coming from the Canonical > Foundation team. > > I've been told one new member is being onboarded which isn't from > Foundations (but from another Canonical team) but I don't think that > change the picture and it does look like people wanting their group to > be the only ones to have control and reflect bad on the project (unless > you believe we don't have members outside of Canonical-foundations that > would be suited for the job or wanting to do it, which I don't think is > true) I can't help but think that this (3 new members, all from Foundations) is either evidence of the (unintended) gate-keeping in action - ie. since there is hardly any documentation on how to become a release team member in this case (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ReleaseTeam has nothing to say about this) the only way to become one is to be close to those who are already on the team - which is primarily foundations. Or perhaps it is just evidence that the foundations team are best placed to handle release team tasks etc. > > > I've been talking to members of those teams and their admin over the > years and I don't believe they are interested in seeing more openness in > the process which I why I'm bringing the topic to the TB at this point. > I'm happy to provide more examples or to discuss the situation directly > with TB members if needed. > > Also as a disclosure, I find the lack of manpower and the review delays > from those teams problematic and I tried to proposed my help to the SRU > team several times in the past in private conversation with current > members who seemed to be open to the idea to never hear back. We also > tried to get someone from ~ubuntu-desktop added to the release group > after Laney left Canonical and had less time to contribute to hit a > similar walls. Ideally we would have a mentoring process when existing Canonical Ubuntu Engineering teams identify such a need - again, I would much prefer to see something like this than the under-documented / gatekeeping by neglect situation that I see currently. > > I'm busy enough and already member of other key teams and I might not > been the right applicant for those but I would have like to at least > have someone tell me that because at this point I still don't know if > the idea of having me helping got rejected or not considered? And if it > was not if that's because of the lack of process which means we just end > up in a situation where those teams don't even realize that the project > has some members that would be wanted to help? > > I've also to admit the situation has made me wonder a few times in the > recent cycles if I should reconsider my involvement in the project (This part is now redundant but on the original thread I was the first to reply, but retaining it here for completeness) It would be great to get input from other TB members since surely the last thing we want to do it demotivate others by remaining silent? > > Thanks for reading, > Sebastien Bacher > > -- technical-board mailing list technical-board@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/technical-board
