[Python-Dev] Encouraging developers

[Phil Thompson]

On Tuesday 06 March 2007 1:42 pm, Jeremy Hylton wrote:
> On 3/6/07, Georg Brandl <g.brandl at gmx.net> wrote:
> > Raymond Hettinger schrieb:
> > > [Phil Thompson]
> > >
> > >> I think a lot of people care, but many can't
> > >> do anything about because the barrier to entry is too great.
> > >
> > > Do you mean commit priviledges?  ISTM, those tend to be
> > > handed out readily to people who assert that they have good use for
> > > them. Ask the Georg-bot how readily he was accepted and coached.  IMO,
> > > his acceptance was a model that all open source projects should aspire
> > > to.
> >
> > Indeed. For me, it wasn't "hard" to get tracker rights. I reviewed some
> > patches, commented on bugs, posted suggestions to python-dev etc. When I
> > asked about tracker rights on python-dev, they were given to me.
> > Then, it wasn't "hard" to get commit rights. I contributed some stuff,
> > and after a while I asked about commit rights on python-dev, and they
> > were given to me on condition that I still let a core dev review inteded
> > changes.
> >
> > As far as I recall, there has been nearly no one who asked for commit
> > rights recently, so why complain that the entry barrier is too great?
> > Surely you cannot expect python-dev to got out and say "would you like to
> > have commit privileges?"...
>
> You can ask whether we should have a plan for increasing the number of
> developers, actively seeking out new developers, and mentoring people
> who express interest.  Would the code be better if we had more good
> developers working on it?  Would we get more bugs fixed and patches
> closed?  If so, it wouldn't hurt to have some deliberate strategy for
> bringing new developers in.  I can easily imagine someone spending a
> lot of time mentoring and a little time coding, but having a bigger
> impact that someone who only wrote code.

Thank you - that's exactly what I'm trying to say.

Phil