evening the entry bar: git account management

[Aaron J. Seigo]

i'm starting a new thread for this because it really is a parallel issue and i 
don't want to hijack Vincent's thread to discuss it

On February 16, 2010, Daniel Stone wrote:
> On Tue, Feb 16, 2010 at 10:21:02AM -0800, Aaron J. Seigo wrote:
> > On February 16, 2010, Vincent Untz wrote:
> > > I learnt a few days ago that we finally have a xdg-specs git repo. So
> > > let's move forward :-)
> > 
> > great!
> > 
> > now, how do people get push access to it? trolling around on
> > http://www.freedesktop.org i couldn't find instructions on how to apply
> > for an account or who would qualify for it.
> 
> http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/AccountRequests -- incidentally, this is

it's not linked to from:

	http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/GettingInvolved

but it is linked to from the next sentence in the paragraph on the main page. 
the linked sentence itself is: "See AccountRequests for information on how to 
obtain CVS access to a project." CVS?

the text on AccountRequests is the opposite of friendly: "To obtain an account 
for a project hosted by freedesktop.org, you must follow these rules. Failure 
to do so will probably result in your request getting dropped on the floor. 
Don't take it personally if it does, the rules are there to make sure it 
doesn't happen, so if they aren't followed ..."

that doesn't particularly make me want to get involved.

the page doesn't describe who would qualify for an account or who i should 
consult to see i i might qualify (i've got to figure that part out for myself; 
ime, contributors rarely manage that on their own)

the instructions are poor:

"Create a bug asking for an account. Select the Product that corresponds to 
the Project for which you are requesting access. If there's no product in 
bugzilla for the project in question, file it against the freedesktop.org 
product, in the New Accounts component."

there is no hint as to what to use as the title or the component; i assume 
that noticing requests for accounts happens by diligent people reading through 
all new bug reports? sounds like a system that lends itself to accidental 
failure?

i'd like to do more than observe/complain, but i can't edit any of these pages 
because the wiki is locked down even when logged in. so, sorry about not doing 
something about the above.

compare and contrast the AccountsRequest page with what we use in KDE:

	http://techbase.kde.org/Contribute/Get_a_SVN_Account
	https://sysadmin.kde.org/svnaccount/

other projects, i'm sure, have similarly comprehensive solutions that we can 
also use as examples. i know we probably do not have the resources around fd.o 
to implement something very elaborate, but we can improve what we have now.

as a start, can we unlock the website wiki for people who are logged in?
how do wiki accounts get approved for editing, for that matter?

> also aliased by:
> http://www.google.com/search?q=new+account+freedesktop.org&btnI=I'm+Feeling
> +Lucky

using google as a replacement for discoverability on the project's own website 
isn't a great answer.

the search on freedesktop.org does indeed work, though, for "account"; i 
should have tried that, sorry.

> > how long does it take to get an account set up?
> 
> Not long.

how long is long?
what is the policy on what is too long?

> > who is responsible for making this happen? (and hopefully it's more than
> > one person)
> 
> A few people.  Not me.

where are these "few people" defined?
what is the community accountability?
how do they know if a request should get approved for a given product?

in general, there is a lack of transparency that makes it more difficult than 
necessary to get a grasp on how to get involved (or even if one would want 
to).

i would like to help fd.o document the processes better, improve the clarity o 
the website (starting with examining who can edit it) and re-assess how git 
accounts are handed.

thoughts?

-- 
Aaron J. Seigo
humru othro a kohnu se
GPG Fingerprint: 8B8B 2209 0C6F 7C47 B1EA  EE75 D6B7 2EB1 A7F1 DB43

KDE core developer sponsored by Qt Development Frameworks