 Rhaid, mendi'n fwrdd. I'm going to try and turn this into discussion as much as I can, cos, as you can hear, my throat is suffering already. I'm Jonathan, I'm one of four of the Debian Account Managers, and when I asked who was doing this after the four of us a few days ago, the answer was, you're the only one there, so have fun. Here we are. Championsolin Road. Mathen簡單 So, I am going to recap very quickly for people who aren't involved in this process at all who hands up in which bits of the process and then there is some news that we have if you are already involved in the process because Enrico has had a burst of activity recently and reading everything nearby. And then we can now discuss thì ac dyna'r angen o'r ddysgu o'r cyffredinol? Felly, yna'r angen o'r angen o'r adnod a'r hynny yn ei ddysgu o'r adnod? Dwi'n meddwl. Felly, mae'n adnod. Felly, dyna'r adnod. Felly, mae'n adnod? Roedd yn y proses? Mae hynny'n hoffa arall a oeddech chi i'r adnod o'r adnod, felly y gallwn gweld i'r adnod o'r adnod. Dwi'n byd yn meddylu, a dweud am y diolch yn gweithio'r amgarlo'r maen nhw'n ystafell, dwi'n meddylu, gallwn'i ddefnyddio a i hynny'nch chi? Doedd chi'n meddylu a i gyd y Deciau? Mae'r meddylu i'n meddyliau i'r meddylu? Nid oedd, lle'n meddylu i meddylu amgoed o'u meddylu, ac rwyf wedi cael cysylltu'r meddylu o fewn i'r meddylu. Debian Maintainers. Are you here? Any Debian Maintainers, not developers just maintainers? One, OK, one or two. If you are unfamiliar with the term, the Debian Maintainers has limited upload rights on some packages. So they're not a Debian member as in the formal sense. Need Eat The aware of voting rights or Ar Allison Police. But you can have limited rights and the intensiwn is that you can get used to doing some uploads with some packages, build up some history and then perhaps become a DD later on. And we have Danbyn Developers who are full members and they can be uploading, but for some years now we have also had non uploading developers. Fe wnaeth mae'r dyfodreston wedi lefans i wych yn ymwneud yn ei fod y dyfodreston i wych yn ymwneud yn lle. I ddim yn gwneud o'r gwawddodd iddyn nhw, cyd-ci i ddim yn gwneud ddigwydd, ac efall, gyda'r dyfodreston sy'n gyffredinidd neu ddigwydd, ac roedd yw'r dyfodreston yn ymwneud. Ydw i'w bwysig, mae'r dyfodreston i wych yn ymwneud, gyda'r dyfodreston i wych yn ymwneud, ac oeddwn ni'n ffain i ni, yn ychyn ymwneud yn ymwneud. I'm not as ill as I thought. Application managers are Debian developers who have some experience in the project and who take an applicant and guide them through the new maintenance process and decide whether they think that they are going to recommend them to become a developing developer and then report back to the account managers. And then finally we have contributors who is everybody else who's not involved because if you're contributing to Debian you are by de facto a Debian contributor. So we would normally expect that you're a contributor for a little while and then when you decide you want to join the project formally you're an applicant for a little while and you might go on to become one of the three categories of member that we have. If you have been a Debian developer for a little while then either you will volunteer or I might hunt you down and say you want to be an application manager don't you? Because I have a queue and I always have a queue so if you are sat in here and you're a DD and you have been for more than about three days and you'd like to be an application manager please come and talk to me because there is a queue as there always is. All of these processes are now handled by the nm.debian.org database and website that goes with it. So Debian maintainers for some years has been handled by Annabelle almost exclusively but it's always been a long-term goal to fold that into the rest of the processes and that's now complete. So if you are used to the nm website you'll find that there are new style processes and the old style ones that are in progress will be completed but then they'll be archived. New style processes take lots of the work out for you because you don't need to do the SC and DEMUP agreement anymore you don't need to get a declaration of intent from your applicant you don't need to get their login name and you don't need to get their forwarding address and you don't need to make sure that they've got a biography because the website will enforce all of this before they even reach you. So if you're an AM or if you're thinking about being an AM but think that sounds like an awful lot of desk work we took it all away it's fine you don't have to do any of that anymore. New style processes are much quicker to take place in the few that we've been doing because the administrative work is already out of the way. So as an application manager what I'm looking for when you recommend or don't an applicant is that you can find sufficient evidence in the archive or in their social work that they're doing good work and they're doing it consistently and they're a good social fit and if all those boxes are true then there's very little you need to you should find that you're needing to discuss with them you should be able to find most of that activity already if there isn't evidence like that in the archive that's probably an indication that they're not ready to be a full developer yet. So new style processes are lovely and if you're applying in the future you will be on a new style process there's only a handful of old ones still left to run. There is one exception to this which is collab mate access which is still a manual process because automating it probably involves screen scraping fusion forge and nobody's really felt very enthusiastic about that to date and it's probably dangerous as well so we are still handling collab mate requests by hand. Signed mail to front desk I am a Debian maintainer and I'd like to get to collab mate or I am a DD no sorry a DD has collab mate already or I am working with this person and I'd like them to have collab mate access and it will be turned around. If you're feeling enthusiastic we could do with some help with documenting all this because documentation is not our strong point so updating some of the wiki pages which talk about old processes talk about mailing front desk for lots of things need tidying up Documentation on the main website could do with harmonising so that there are places where we talk about three or four ways of doing things If you were an application manager at the moment we could do with more people on front desk because there's a natural graduation from front desk to account manager but then we don't really have many people coming through at the other end of that chain front desk is quite interesting you'll meet many of the applicants who are coming through and you'll also get to know the developers who are working as AMs quite well so it's an interesting job that you do not need to make judgement decisions about applicants it's purely administrative so you don't need to worry about having to have difficult conversations with people and at the end of the process you check that all of the applicants details are right and that their application is ready to be reviewed and that's about all so if you fancy being a front desk member please come and have a word with me and if you're a developer and you think that you might like to be an application manager you're also very welcome to come and talk to me I could probably do with one or maybe two who are prepared to do non-uploading applications because they're less technical it's less easy to get a grind on what somebody's up to so you get to know the applicant a little bit better with those and we could always do with new uploading AMs as well you don't necessarily need to be exclusive to one or the other I can feed you whichever you fancy doing next so if you're in the process now how are you finding it? I'm still in the old process I hope for the new process because the old one was a bit complicated and such too much things around I would have preferred to be in the new process of NM but it works How long have you been in your process? I've been in the process Have you been in your process? I applied officially in February had to wait a few months for my advocacies and now we are just starting out the rest February to June or July getting your advocacies and getting into an application manager is probably about the kind of queue we're at at the moment what I'm hoping and would like very much is that we can speed up the next part of that which is working with your application manager and making a recommendation I've completed the new process two weeks ago it took seven days and it was awesome That's much more like what I wanted to hear I'm in the old process and it has been eight months so I'm on the old process and it has been eight months Can I start again with the new one? You might as well finish when you're in To be clear, the new start process gets lots of the administration more streamlined but the time you spend with your application manager will still depend on how much your involvement is already and how much time you have and they have Ideally a matter of weeks is good for that stage Eight months, did you say, is getting on a bit so let me know about the process and let's get some movement on it because if it's been that long already we can probably just get some boxes ticked and get you finished For the old timers can you explain how the new process makes it so much faster? What's the maschic behind the new process that makes it so fast? I'm going to borrow high voltage for this but I'm sure you won't mind Here is the details that we need to collect for him in the Advocacy's OK block Sorry, in the requirements OK block At the beginning they're of course all not OK so the reason this is quicker for the application manager is that lots of this can be done by the applicant themselves So the key consistency checks for example are done by the site as soon as you apply and you give it your key fingerprint and it says yes or no So you don't need to run keycheck.sh anymore you don't need to check the signatures on it because you can see it all straight there The Advocacy's matter less as the AM but as a front desk what we were doing is keeping an eye out for the Advocacy's and as they arrive we mark them OK and then they move on to the next step of the process and again these are automatic So as an advocate or an applicant you don't generate mails and sign them anymore you feed all the data straight into the NM site which makes it much more streamlined The DEMUP agreement similarly the applicant will be prompted for the text that needs to be written for the DEMUP and they sign it and feed it into the site and the site checks the signature and all that administrative here happens before your applicant even gets a sign to you so you can chop that whole section out of the template You can ask them again if you're feeling like you need to spend a bit more time with them So application managers How are you getting on? Who's here? Let's start with that OK 3, 4, keep your hand up if you heard from your applicant in the last 3 months Keep your hand up if you heard from your applicant in the last 6 weeks No Kicking them in person does not count because I can't see it Did you hear from them last week? OK It was the same for me last week I think it's the process yesterday OK, I've timed this really badly That's quite good I'm pleased about that because the process has a reputation of being tortuous for application managers and applicants and we're gradually shedding that reputation but I still see places where people say I'm not in the process because I've heard it's terrible and it takes 3 years and then I get nothing out of it in the end anyway If I may say something on that because I have heard that before I applied to become a development developer which is something like 10 years ago and actually it really depends a lot on both the application manager and the applicant I've had an applicant who finished the all-style process within 3 days which means I got 2 mails per day for him with good answers Yes, it's possible It really depends on both sides so if one of the sides starts not direct feedback but let's wait for whatever 2 days, 2 weeks, 2 months you're dead so that's a really important thing if both sides really keep talking it could go fast with the old style but of course, as always you get the bad news not from the one who is working fine but from the other ones so it would be nice if we could get rid of that saying it's slow but I'm not convinced that it really works by changing the process but we need to tell the people it's important to keep on it's important for the AMs and if they can't do it say something about it I think one of the points that have taken long for me is when it was not clear the person should be accepted I mean, two times I rejected somebody one time it took me several months for him to accept that he was not ready and I just deferred it and it remained like an open process to be reopened for many years until it was finally closed I mean, there have been cases where it's so difficult because I mean, there are cases where it's easy so if an applicant is perfect you can just walk with them through all the things there are applicants, I learned more from the applicants than the applicant from me there are these cases there are the cases where it's obviously they are not ready which you just slide to the front and say forget it, come back in an hour or one year that's also easy but those who are mostly ready who are perhaps even ready on a technical level so yes, I understand all of how they've been worked technically but you are pretty sure there will just be a total amount of issues for the project and it shouldn't be developer's these are the hard ones that I feel with and yes, I saw a few names that came to my mind and that's not an easy one and I think it's got an old people nerve so, yeah I'm more than happy in those cases the hard bit in those I think is working out how to say it to the applicant you're not only ready and I don't want to carry on with you and not to make it feel like a rejection I'm quite happy for those cases to come back to front desk and weaken the account managers can do the deferment if you like in your place, if it's becoming a problem to do the human side of it You said before you would like more account manager I really would recommend everyone who is account manager if he has issues, just go to front desk I'm better sure he will help everyone so if one has an opinion I don't know what to do now don't leave the mail in your inbox unanswered for two weeks just forward it to front desk and say please help me now Is anybody thinking of applying? Oh God Two rows at the back don't work well Sometimes it's actually also a little bit hard to decide from an application manager side if the people are ready so you have brilliant people you know from the first mail brilliant DD and you have, I never had this you have one which are clearly not ready but you have also something in between which you say yeah I could work out I think one thing which could be in use here is kind of metrics or kind of idea about questions we ask what we expect so that we also maybe as application manager get around the same level what is acceptable not so I'm not sure especially hard am or not or I don't know Some guidelines for ams to decide if they are near the benchmark I'm scribbling on here which is a note to myself to come back to this at some point but yeah the question templates are quite useful for ams but of course there's no corresponding answers because what we don't want is for an applicant to just go snip the answers and there you go look I'm an amazing DD so I wonder if some some kind of indication of those technical aspects for ams only would be useful and also some kind of indication of what we're expecting socially which I think is more where the difficulty is on those I'm thinking mostly PMP maybe you can repeat that I'm thinking mostly about the PMPs actually the policy and procedures parts yes yeah those are more the judgment the social judgment parts the task and skills because it's a technical thing it's easier to evaluate in that sense yes I'll come back to those is somebody in IRC can't see my window in this resolution and I don't know what somebody just asked me I would like to do a comment from IRC now for basically it has been suggested to say it sounds like fontus or to be looking at applications have been more than a month and pinging is the application manager yes and we found that when that can happen that that's a pinging the application manager at the same time can be enough just to nudge the process back into either coming back to front desk or to finishing off the difficulty for us there is that we're currently struggling for front desk time so that isn't happening because it's not so crucial so having AMs progressing up to front desk would be a really really great thing at the moment and there's a link into the Debian wiki just appearing in the minutes that you probably might find useful for that so it's called front desk slash AM tutorial and I'm pretty sure it will need some work but maybe your experience is valuable there as well I take a look I was not sure if you were going to say something or so is anybody thinking of applying oh good okay thinking maybe not you just might get press gagged was somebody did somebody worry about that good okay expect them actively yeah so I'm very new to Debian but it looks very interesting and I think I'm not experienced enough for that now with a bit more experience I hope to apply for this and get through the process would you do you think you would want to take a technical track or a non technical track I'm sorry do you think you would want to take a technical view or a non technical I would like to help with translation because I'm not a native English speaker but I would like to help with technical as well so the Mary I have a little question because I don't know the answer for that so we have the uploading dedes and non uploading dedes do you have a process to go from non uploading to uploading dedes it has happened it's manual because because it happened when we weren't expecting it so we haven't written it but yes it's possible and we should advertise it maybe graduating from DM to DD is trivial and that's a service graduating from non uploading to uploading graduating from non uploading to uploading is straight forward but we do it manually what we currently can't cater for but are going to need to find a way too soon is people who are a non uploading DD because they do do some technical work but don't want to be able to access the whole archive but do want to have DM on some packages so that they can upload just those and that breaks us at the moment completely so that if there is enough demand for that then we are going to need to find a way of automating that at the moment we can kind of do it with some fudging manually but it's not very pretty in the database I mean anyways it's obvious that there is some needs to be some way for every developer to become uploading once so that's not a question to greet a process I think uploading is already a huge exception so to make a huge exception and then a small step for that I'm not sure if it really needs some automation or just shouldn't be handled manually I said it had been previous years and I think we have seen that happening so yeah why not? At the moment there is just not enough demand for it to do it automatically manually it's fine for now Put some numbers to this we have 18 non uploading developers 800 uploading developers so if one of them wants to bother us it doesn't add much overhead Actually my question wasn't about the technical side just to say people that it's not written I mean in the stone that you can still change your access later in the future which was not very clear for me it was the case or not That's all But basically if somebody says I'm not sure if I'm already let's say technically enough to become a developer and the implementation is to something to work they can commit or they can help for example committing patches committing translations which just doesn't need to be anything in the archive if you have access rights to get archives do something like Debian Maintainer they could take care of packages and after you have done that a bit you are more familiar with Steppien you are more familiar with the procedures you could easily show that you have done useful work so if you have done lots of good patches anybody will say obviously he has done good things for tours for the packages so we know it works so it's much easier so if you are unsure to start working on it and don't think too much about procedures procedures will follow if you do a good work you know of at least one case for somebody becoming a developer uploading developer without having ever maintained a package because he has shown that he actually has the skills does it so yes that works the key to short applications that we just get over and done with is that your am can just have a look at the work that you have already got in the archive or in translations or wherever and go tick tick tick tick tick ask a couple of questions for the missing bits that's the gold standard that we are after the reputation is probably fair in lots of cases because it's easy for that to get run into the sand when it's somebody who hasn't quite got that history to go and have a look at but it is getting better I promise so I've scribbled on the minutes that we should probably be advertising those pathways better like getting from non uploading to uploading but we could do with somebody to write documentation for that so if you fancy writing some pages for Davion Org that would be amazing may I ask a question translation has been mentioned once or twice I think just as an example in my case I'm interested in getting GNU cash translated and I looked around and it seemed like you have to download the code and do your translation file and then compile it and that is not what I'm interested in I just want the file translated and somehow plug it in my copy and get it running I don't mind forwarding the file somewhere but the point is how does this fit in so that's a little outside where I'm normally working but I have touched it in the past so this may not be up to date but in the past in some cases there were a set of mailing lists for the languages and as developers need translations taking place they will mail the right file to the mailing list and the translators can do what they need to and send the file back again so it should be more streamlined than you're describing and I'm sure it is I'm not the best person to help you with it at the moment but the translation team I can put you in touch with if I could add something to this I'm new to Debian but I've worked with Android in the past there's this online service called CrowdIn so Android applications also have the transitions in one single file so what a developer can do is just upload all the files to that service and people can just go sign up and just edit directly and the developer is the one who is responsible for getting the transitions updated so if there is some FOSS alternative or if there is some FOSS service like that which could be set up then translation would be as easy as just signing up and entering the strings so what you should do at this point is go and talk to the translation teams and find out if what they do at the moment is what you think is a great way of doing it and if not help them change it there's no translation effort sort of steered by Debian there are translation teams doing that work within Debian but this is somewhat removed from where I'm normally working so they're the best people to talk to about it basically there's a difference between Debian and other projects in that regard I mean Debian is not a single that's a source code archive everything is kept people are using Git these days a lot we used to have subversion a lot but basically every developer is free or every maintain of a package is free to do it as it fits sales with translations so there are a bit of translation teams where things are centralized I'm pretty sure the big ones like KDE or GNOME have their ways to deal with it but they also have a lot of upstream translations so they don't need to do as much as that for the smaller ones it's really different translation is definitely one of the parts where we could get or could do things better so for the moment it's just it's working as good enough that people are not upset enough that they are going to improve it which now could be something good because it's working good enough and something bad because we're not improving it but if somebody is really willing to do it and speak with localization teams I think that is an area of Debian that also could need more help but doesn't need it or badly enough said now one of the persons who is helping wherever it's just it's burning is doing that but of course I'm pretty sure any of us here will be happy to help you finding ways with those teams or finding people to do that but that's something else and helping to find people or doing it ourselves so if you want to do that we have more interest in that please speak to us and we would like to find people you could speak with how we do for time anything else yes please be nice I'm always nice so how many AMs do we have at the moment? I don't know off the top of my head yes you can probably do it quicker than I can on this machine we have sufficient that at times we manage to not have a queue for a very brief period but so it has yes occasionally what we find is that we get bursts of applications around some key times like after this week is always a busy one and then there's a couple of other conferences around and GSOC results in applications so in the quiet periods we can chew through people quite quickly and we almost get back to equilibrium but then there is always a burst of applications that comes out with a queue there are 26 listed application containers who have a max applicant of at least one my queue depth at the moment is currently six I think so those people are in the process and have done the paperwork they need to to get to being assigned somebody but are then just waiting there are five slots available it may not take account of the difference when you're in old style processes I'm currently not occupied and apart from that I don't think there are any other slots how much of a difference is there if you're applying as a non-uploading DD and uploading DD I'm actually looking for documentation about non-uploading DD if one were to go for that so apart from collab mate which is special everybody goes through the same beginning process which is you need to have an alley off account because that's where the collab mate comes from that's how we tie all your bits together with some identity because email addresses didn't work very well with that you go to here and there's an application page and you either choose to do dm ddu if you're a dm then you get an advocate to support your application and then there are four days for any objections to arrive and assuming that there aren't you go straight to key ring and you join the key ring if you are a DDU you need to do the paperwork and the advocate and then there are four days for objections same as there are for dms and then you are assigned an application manager and then you come back to dams dams will review the whole application and make a judgement call and then you go to key ring to be added for a DD the process is exactly the same for a DD the difference is in what your application manager will talk to you about so we have a set of pre-formatted questions for both for upload the applications which your am will pick and choose from for the bits that they can't find evidence of in the archive for not loading it's a little more fuzzy because there are so many areas you can be working in so your application manager will probably say show me some examples of where you've been working and you can do that and they can go and have a look they can have a look at the ones that you haven't shown them and make sure that you're not just picking and choosing and then they'll make the recommendation the same so for DD regardless of whether you're uploading or uploading the process is really very similar everything starts with an alioff account and then you sign and then when you start the process you get to choose from which strands you want to start which pathway you want to start with just to point out the final step for DDU and DDNU is DSA tis once you hit key ring for DM you can be added to dark by any developer DDU, DDNU you need DSA to create the account first and they're pretty quick about that yeah they are and we normally see we normally see DSA create the actual accounts within hours or a day or so the key ring maintainers work in a batch so there's sometimes a delay at that state do you do a month please? so the aim is the key ring will do an update at least once a month we can't occasionally be convinced to do one faster but in general once a month is somebody in IRC would you mind relaying there's a question about if the applicant can help the AM find the evidence yes and also then a follow-up going with that involved giving away too much about the questions um the questions are available if you go and look for them so while you're waiting to be assigned an application manager you might perhaps want to go have a look at what the questions are there was another AM who I can't remember who it was who explained that they went through the process with their applicant pretty much in a day the applicant had already downloaded all of the questions worked out what the answers should be done all the research while they were waiting for their advocates to go through so essentially they cut and paste all the answers in backwards and forwards and had it all done within a day of the actual getting AM bit and the impression was it was fine because they'd done the research themselves they could talk about it that was all fine I'm fine with that approach as long as they aren't cut and pasted from someone else's answers right of course I have suggested some people that were thinking about becoming did this well I have given them the address of this repository with the questions for them to study because it's a great study guide and well it's good research and yes as you say if you already have it well it's easier for the application manager to follow we do get suspicious if three applicants all come through exactly the same answers though so at least we don't be too blatant about it but besides those yes it's more than fine to say to your AM look here's the work I've been doing that I don't have a problem there at all because we have tools to find that but they're not there are still places where you might be working where our tools don't show you up so it's fine to say here's some examples of my work I mean I was until last week in active AM I had processed people and stopped doing so for a long time one of the reasons I went back to being an AM is that it helps developers like keep in touch with the latest practices as people who are getting in the VN are following usually the latest trends and well I learned 10 years ago it's over 10 years ago yeah I certainly find being an AM very rewarding I think there are very few applicants I've had in fact I'm not sure there are any where I haven't learned something and even you know what we're on the same page seeing someone else's viewpoint and the way they answer the questions I find really interesting so if you haven't considered being an AM and you've got some spare time I would certainly look into it and process maybe a couple of people and see how you find it and also it's really nice to down the line see those people contribute to Debian and go I help get them in so my applicants are hundreds of times more active in Debian than I am and I sort of feel a little bit of oh I hope that happened so how do I actually become an AM email front desk is that all it is okay I would like to be an AM please sign your mail so that we don't give you an applicant and then you say what I don't know anything about this because I was just looking through the site to see to be able to push a button to say you make me an AM and there isn't one no, not at the moment maybe I should do that no email front desk and we will give you one applicant to start with who looks uncontroversial not that we have many controversial ones and at the end of the first one we'll have a look in more detail with you and make sure that you are happy with all the bits and there weren't any queries and so on and then from then on you set the number of slots to the amount of time you have and if I've got someone I'll fill a slot fill the alternative way of doing it is to realise that you've been an AM since the year 2000 and nudge your number of slots which I just did yes that's also a good point your numbers you've just gone by one as an AM if you don't have time for applicants right now you can set your slots to zero and until you put them back to one again you won't be bothered by us so it's not a commitment in perpetuity to have a queue of people at your door you can say I don't have time at the moment so I need to admit that at the time when I was working at AM I found it more easy to process three applicants in parallel at times and at times nobody because if I see them in parallel I'm pretty much sure I'm not just saying oh yes this one is whatever it's easier to keep one on standards and then not to ask applicants at all at other times it was easier for me than having just one in series other people might make a difference so just my own experience right we should probably wrap up unless there is anything else so I'm here until Saturday I'm more than happy for you to grab me in the corridor and have a chat about any of this key ring maintainers are here all week if they can be of any use I'm promising people your time without asking you I'm alright with that come and talk to us and the new members site has all of the contact information on if you want to get hold of us outside the conference thank you for coming and being helpful and saving my throat somewhat