Debian Contributors

To: debian-devel-announce@lists.debian.org

Subject: Debian Contributors

From: Enrico Zini <enrico@enricozini.org>

Date: Fri, 27 Dec 2013 11:41:05 +0100

Message-id: <[🔎] 20131227104105.GA24237@enricozini.org>

Mail-followup-to: debian-devel@lists.debian.org

Hello, since DebConf[1], me and a number of other people[2] have been working on making it so that we can see and credit all the people who contribute to Debian. Debian is vast, and many people contribute to it, not just Debian Developers[3]. We value and encourage all kinds of contributions[4], but we currently fail to make that work visible, and to credit it. * "Debian Contributor" We should have a new name/hat/status/position/label in the project so we can think and talk about everyone who contributes to Debian, regardless of the kind of contribution they do. "Debian Contributor" seems to be a good name[5]. To become a Debian Contributor there is no special process or approval: when you contribute to Debian, you automatically become a Debian Contributor. If you read this mail, you probably are a Debian Contributor already, and you likely have been for some time. The difference is that if you previously didn't have a visible role in Debian, now you do. * The list of Debian Contributors The list of all known Debian Contributors is here: http://contributors.debian.org/ The role of the list is to make people and their work visible and to credit it. The list will never be fully comprehensive, but it will try to be be the best effort Debian can possibly make to credit everyone. The site codebase is managed by the NM Front Desk with the help of other contributors[6], but the data on the site is managed independently by each team in Debian. Any Debian Developer can log in the site with their web password[7], configure a new data source and start sending updates. The list of data sources configured in the site is here: https://contributors.debian.org/sources/ there currently are two real ones: wiki.debian.org and nm.debian.org; one being worked on: Debian Security Tracker; and some proof of concept ones that are leftover from site development, waiting to be replaced by proper data feeds by their respective teams. Tip: click on any table header in the site to sort the table by that column. * Submitting data to the site Data is sent to the site via an HTTP POST of form data with an attached JSON file. The technical details are here[8]. I created a Python module[9] to simplify the process, and it comes with a few examples[10], but there is nothing python-specific in the process, and generating and posting JSON should simple enough in any reasonable language. Any Debian Developer can log in the website with their web password[7] and create the data source. Any Debian Contributor can implement data submission process, they just need to know the submission password that has been configured for that data source. If you are not a Debian Contributor and would like to implement data submission for some team, just start working on it and you automatically become a Debian Contributor :) By all means do your worst and start submitting data to the site. If you are a member of a team and you think you should be credited somewhere in Debian, just write some code to collect contribution information about your team and send it to contributors.debian.org If your team misses a nice activity page, implement a data source for contributors.debian.org and you get it for free. It worked for the Wiki[11] and for nm.debian.org[12] :) * Technical details The site's development roadmap and status is here: https://contributors.debian.org/contributors/site_status Here is a TODO-list with simple, actionable items, and is the starting place to get involved with the development team: https://wiki.debian.org/Teams/FrontDesk/DcSiteDevel * What now? Please build data sources for your teams[8][10]. If you are interested in helping further, start at the newmaint-site devel mailing list[6] and at https://wiki.debian.org/Teams/FrontDesk/DcSiteDevel Ciao, Enrico [1] http://www.enricozini.org/2013/debian/debian-contributors-right-after-debconf/ [2] I lost track of all the conversations I had, so, ironically, I am not able to credit everyone. The archives of [6] are a good start, though. [3] or Debian Maintainers, or Alioth committers or Bug reporters, or Wiki contributors, or Translators, or Mailing list contributors, or Sponsored uploaders, or Package reviewers, or Language reviewers, or Conference organizers, Events people, or Press people, or System administrators, or Services developers, or... [4] http://www.debian.org/intro/diversity [5] And so we solve one of the two hard problems in computer science, the other being cache invalidation, and off-by-one errors. [6] http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/newmaint-site [7] https://wiki.debian.org/DebianSingleSignOn [8] https://wiki.debian.org/DebianContributors [9] http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=nm/python-debiancontributors.git [10] http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=nm/python-debiancontributors.git;a=blob;f=README.md [11] https://contributors.debian.org/sources/view/wiki.debian.org/ [12] https://contributors.debian.org/sources/view/nm.debian.org/ -- GPG key: 4096R/E7AD5568 2009-05-08 Enrico Zini <enrico@enricozini.org>