Evolving away from source package realms

From	Didier Raboud <odyx@debian.org>
Newsgroups	linux.debian.project
Subject	Evolving away from source package realms
Date	2022-10-07 15:40 +0200
Message-ID	<FdVK2-cFgY-15@gated-at.bofh.it> (permalink)
Organization	linux.* mail to news gateway

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(This is the continuation of an unspecified thread in the debian-private list 
that generated enough positive content that I deemed it smart enough to jump 
off from it, to a public mailing list. I'm not quoting anything from anyone, 
but there's certainly inspiration from various participants, so thanks for 
that!)

So. We should be having a public discussion about our per-source ownership, 
_and_ about spread responsibilities.  A long-established specificity of Debian 
development is that we have had only one, super-powerful, authorization 
scheme to the archive: become an uploading DD and get unrestricted, 
unsupervised upload right upon all packages.  We solved the social friction 
using processes, documentation, etc. (Yes, DM status opened restricted upload 
rights to limited package sets).  There are two sides to that.

As all uploading DDs _can_ upload, we get (theoretical) built-in failover: 
when one goes emeritus (the ideal case), they can  be replaced by any other 
without much process.  We also get low-cost emergency fixups; if I upload 
something broken just before going (explicitly) VAC, anyone can revert and 
upload.  Not having explicit barriers in place is (was?) a nice way to reduce 
administrativia, and to address ownership disputes in the open; the only 
restrictions on NMUs, orphaning and package salvaging, etc, are social, not 
technical.  And by the nature of being social, we address them with processes, 
documentation, policy (and committees enforcing some of the rules).  In other 
words, no technical barriers prevent me from uploading a broken src:base-files; 
but I will face social backlash (and possibly administrative measures), 
because I would have broken agreed-upon social norms.

The flip-side of this is also that we all _care_; as I _can_ upload src:base-
files, I feel partly responsible for it.  I argue that uploading DDs care about 
all of Debian packages, not only because they care about Debian, but also 
because they have the needed authorization (power) to fix any and all of them.  
What matters is not that the power is exercised, but that it exists.  The set 
"all Debian source packages" is a concern for all of us; we're one large team 
for one _very_ large set.  Attempts to split this set has worked by interest-
groups so far; language-specific, desktop-environment-specific, etc.  (And it 
has worked quite well for these groups, also because the subsets they care 
about are reasonably self-contained).  But as we all care, we are also all 
entitled to opinions (that might be conflicting) about OS-level design 
decisions which (as was amply demonstrated by this mega-thread) cannot 
reasonably be addressed by source-level ownership. Deciding that /lib is going 
to be a symlink cannot (and, for the avoidance of doubt, has not) be a single 
source package maintainer(s)' decision.  But as things currently work, it ends 
up being implemented and steered as such, with our source-package-level 
conflict-handling processes (TC, etc, etc).

So, we have eachothers' backs, and we all care, how to move from there?

Looking at how Ubuntu is structured (with topic teams) made me wonder if some 
variation of that couldn't reasonably be applied to Debian, by dividing our 
giant set in subsets (topic teams, baskets, ...), under clearer team's 
responsibilities, and onboarding processes.  That would imply that certain 
people would have more power: the "PostgreSQL server" subset team would 
have authority and (technical) upload rights upon their packages. And others 
would have less power: not being able to upload these anymore.  The flip-side 
of such a setup, in which a large set of uploading-DDs would see their power 
over the "PostgresSQL server" set largely reduced, is that they would also 
"care less" (why investigating an RC bug if I can't NMU anyway).  FWIW, I'd 
happily limit my uploading rights to forbid me to upload a Gnome package, a 
kernel package, or a PostgreSQL package, provided that there would be 
documented onboarding processes, should that ever interest me.

But I argue that we're already _socially_ in such an environment: all 
contributors (including uploading DDs) not already in any given team go 
through onboarding processes, Salsa MRs' reviews, vetting and review before 
they do upload directly (modulo NMUs, of course).  It's just not enforced by 
the archive.

The last aspect would also be to completely remove the source-package-level 
realms; within a subset, there would be no package-specific maintainers or  
vetoes; disputes would move "out" from source-package-level to subset-level. 
That's not to say that within-subset disputes wouldn't happen nor could be 
escalated; it's rather to stipulate that the realms' boundaries wouldn't be 
the source-packages', but the subset's.

In the current situation in which there's quite some friction around "merged-
usr/" (and in the lingering situation around init systems), I'd see a "Debian 
core" subset made of base-files, libc, authority over the filesystem layout, 
dpkg, apt; and a "Debian system core" subset with authority over supported and 
default init systems, kernel, initramfs, firmware*.

Was I rumbling in my bubble, or does any of this make sense?

Best,
	OdyX

P.S. I'll be away from Debian lists next week, so don't take absence of 
response for disdain!
P.S.2. Sorry if I mixed "DD" with "uploading DDs"; as we're talking source 
packages, it probably went easier without specifying it everytime.  Non-
uploading DD, know that your work and opinion is valued and respected!

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Thread

Evolving away from source package realms Didier Raboud <odyx@debian.org> - 2022-10-07 15:40 +0200
  Re: Evolving away from source package realms Charles Plessy <plessy@debian.org> - 2022-10-12 02:00 +0200
    Re: Evolving away from source package realms Scott Kitterman <debian@kitterman.com> - 2022-10-12 02:40 +0200
      Re: Evolving away from source package realms Charles Plessy <plessy@debian.org> - 2022-10-16 06:40 +0200
        Re: Evolving away from source package realms Tobias Frost <tobi@debian.org> - 2022-10-16 11:30 +0200
        Re: Evolving away from source package realms Nilesh Patra <nilesh@debian.org> - 2022-10-16 11:50 +0200
          Re: Evolving away from source package realms Charles Plessy <plessy@debian.org> - 2022-10-18 00:20 +0200
            Re: Evolving away from source package realms Thomas Goirand <zigo@debian.org> - 2022-10-18 13:10 +0200
              Re: Evolving away from source package realms Russ Allbery <rra@debian.org> - 2022-10-18 16:30 +0200
                Re: Evolving away from source package realms Thomas Goirand <zigo@debian.org> - 2022-10-19 17:50 +0200
                Re: Evolving away from source package realms Bastian Blank <waldi@debian.org> - 2022-10-19 20:50 +0200
              Re: Evolving away from source package realms "M. Zhou" <lumin@debian.org> - 2022-10-18 17:30 +0200
  Re: Evolving away from source package realms Pierre-Elliott Bécue <peb@debian.org> - 2022-10-12 09:40 +0200
    Re: Evolving away from source package realms Russ Allbery <rra@debian.org> - 2022-10-13 01:30 +0200
      Re: Evolving away from source package realms Tobias Frost <tobi@debian.org> - 2022-10-13 07:20 +0200
        Re: Evolving away from source package realms Russ Allbery <rra@debian.org> - 2022-10-13 09:20 +0200
          Re: Evolving away from source package realms Tobias Frost <tobi@debian.org> - 2022-10-13 14:50 +0200
        Bug#1021714: lists.debian.org: Request for new mailing list: collab-maint (was: Evolving away from source package realms) Santiago Ruano Rincón <santiagorr@riseup.net> - 2022-10-13 14:30 +0200
          Bug#1021714: lists.debian.org: Request for new mailing list: collab-maint (was: Evolving away from source package realms) Andreas Metzler <ametzler@bebt.de> - 2022-10-16 18:40 +0200
      Re: Evolving away from source package realms "M. Zhou" <lumin@debian.org> - 2022-10-18 04:40 +0200
    Re: Evolving away from source package realms Thomas Goirand <zigo@debian.org> - 2022-10-13 09:20 +0200
  Re: Evolving away from source package realms Nilesh Patra <nilesh@debian.org> - 2022-10-12 10:20 +0200
  Re: Evolving away from source package realms Johannes Schauer Marin Rodrigues <josch@debian.org> - 2022-10-12 11:00 +0200
    Re: Evolving away from source package realms Timo Röhling <roehling@debian.org> - 2022-10-19 20:00 +0200
  Re: Evolving away from source package realms Didier Raboud <odyx@debian.org> - 2022-10-23 16:50 +0200
    Re: Evolving away from source package realms Raphael Hertzog <hertzog@debian.org> - 2023-01-19 10:40 +0100

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