Due to lack of response, I am emailing you, the administrators of the Ubuntu Backporters team, as well as CCing ubuntu-devel with this message.
It has been several weeks since my inquiry via ubuntu-devel@lists.ubuntu.com into whether there is an application process or requirement to be part of the Backporters team to assist with clearing out the backports queue, and that I am volunteering my time to directly contribute in the backports process and to help clear out the backports queue and clean it up.
So far, I have yet to receive a response. Therefore, I am forwarding my requests and inquiries directly to you.
I would like to volunteer my time to assist with handling backports and helping to clear the backports queue, as well as work on documenting the Backports process in more detail as what documentation does exist is limited.
The queue for the Backport requests is fairly massive, some of which haven't even been looked at in a VERY long time, and are either obsolete or requesting backports from now-EOL releases which need to be redone from scratch. As such, volunteering my time to the task of assisting with the backports process and to clean out the backports queue is something that I would very much like to be able to do. (This said, I do not have proper access to move along the backports that pass, nor do I have the access to close or invalidate requests which cannot be acted upon due to EOL-release-statuses or due to the requests not being tested, or other types of conflicts).
Thomas
In case it wasn't clear, I am officially volunteering to assist with clearing out the backports queue.
I have been working with the Server Team specifically with NGINX since 2014, but I am well versed in Ubuntu policies and how package processes work, and would like to volunteer to be part of the backporters team to help clear out the pending backports queues. This way, Backports can be seen as a potentially viable method of getting newer software features into older releases where SRUs are not a viable solutions.
Thomas
On 11/29/18 12:07 PM, Thomas Ward wrote:
I took a look at the backports projects today, and the queues there. The backports queues seem to be pretty siaable, and nobody's really taking the time to take a look at them (73 in Xenial backports, 11 in Bionic, 100+ in Trusty, etc.).
I haven't taken a look in-depth on the backport requests yet, but the key thing I am seeing is that all the backporters are otherwise occupied in working on other tasks.
If the problem is nobody is stepping up to volunteer to take a peek, the question then becomes is it just a lack of volunteers with the proper knowledge, or is it a lack of people wanting to take a look, or is it a lack of volunteers with the proper permissions to do the backports? (I'd be willing to volunteer some of my time out of each week (probably weekends in my case) to poke at the backports queues if I were considered an acceptable member for the team)
It'd also be nice to see what requirements are needed to consider someone to be a backporter, the documentation on this seems nonexistent as does process documentation.
Thomas
