[Python-Dev] Becoming a python contributor

[Martin v. Loewis]

John Williams <jrw@pobox.com> writes:

> There aren't enough volunteers willing to dedicate a lot of time, but
> I bet there's a large group of people like me who do things like
> submitting an occasional patch of bug report.  My interpretation of
> the problem Gustavo is pointing out is that the larger group really
> ins't able to help, because everything we do places an additional
> burden on the core developers.

I don't think this is the case. If you manage to fix a bug per week,
and there are ten of you, we can make quite some progress within a few
months. If those regular contributors know how to prepare a
contribution to fit the formal requirements, and provide rationale and
explanations, patches can be applied quite quickly.

> If more of these people were able to contribute directly (i.e. via CVS
> commit access), you'd get a double benefit, since they'd get their
> contributions in faster and it would help free up the core developers
> from a lot of busy work.  I think people with CVS access would also be
> a lot more motivated to contribute, since it removes the uncertaintly
> about whether their work will go into the release or just be wasted.

It is my impression that all people who want CVS write access already
have it (with Gustavo perhaps being one of a few exceptions).

> 2. Offer CVS access to developers who submit useful patches.

That may not be known - but we already do that.

> 3. Publicize #2 to promote more patches from people wanting to prove
> themselves.

Not sure whether this helps: people should not produce a burst of
patches just to get commit privileges. Instead, they should contribute
patches steadily (and should have done so in the past), and then get
CVS write access as a simplification for the rest of the maintainers.

> I'm proposing to set the bar pretty low for CVS access, but I think
> this is a good strategy overall.

I would expect that this will lead to quite a large committer list,
with many people running away after some time.

Regards,
Martin