Re: [Gnewsense-dev] recruitment and retention of gNewSense developers

[avr]

Hi,

On Mon, Aug 09, 2010 at 10:12:20AM -0400, Delyan Raychev wrote:

> Partially triggered by own guilt, but primarily by the desire to grow 
> the gNewSense project I've been contemplating on the scarce developer 
> manpower here at the gNewSense project.

[...]

> Any comments, questions, suggestions?

It might be worthwhile to see if it is possible to involve the
the upstream distribution to a larger degree.

One option is that gNewSense users who have access to
both a gNewSense computer and a Debian computer, match our bugs to
Debian's and post and see them through on Debian's bugtracking system, to 
help Debian and in turn help Debian help gNewSense.

Another (more laborious) one is that an infrastructure is set up where any 
willing dd
can become a gnewsense developer. Even though there are differences
between the projects, I think there are very few dds who bear any ill
will against gnewsense, and at least some, if given the opportunity and it is 
made
easy enough for them, would not mind making the effort of checking if their
package is ready for gnewsense on top of their normal work for debian.

Debian developers are normally not waiting for *more* work, such as taking care
of any derivative distributions. But since most of the derivatives usually take
their fork in a less free direction, some might make an exception for gnewsense,
if it is made easy enough for them and does not add substantially to their 
burden.

These are just suggestions I can come up with right now, but
if there are ways that would increase gnewsense's visibility within the debian
project that would not be detrimental or overly burdensome to them, I think
these would warrant consideration. It might give gnewsense the exposure it 
needs to
attract developers who should be at least somewhat informed about gnewsense's 
goals.

        friendly,
        Andreas