Pain points in debian release process.

Hello everyone, I've stumbled upon this article describing all the issues that make the process of bugfixes and package releases cumbersome in Debian. https://michael.stapelberg.ch/posts/2019-03-10-debian-winding-down/ I've always been interested in contributing to Debian, but just learning the process of maintaining a package seem to be complex enough that I would postpone so I would have more time to look at this -- which I never really had. I've looked at this uncritically as just a matter of remembering and following the process, but the article above seems to describe all the issues that are in fact make the process cumbersome and difficult for the beginners. A few sticking points for me personally were configuring reportbug tool -- as the only way to submit bug reports is via email, so in addition to trying to describe the problem, I also need to configure mailing system, and I'm a technical person who knows this (and I have configured own mail server), so I'd imagine someone whose found some issue and for example is using gmail web interface would be completely lost. I like debian bug tracking system for looking up bugs, but submitting a bug seemed like a huge pain. Debian recently switched to Gitlab as their repository manager, but the article points out that all bug tracking management is still would be done using old and cumbersome tool. I'm writing this email not to start a flamewar about Debian, as I've been using it for more than 10 years and I'm pretty happy about the distribution, but I now I believe that the best way to become Debian contributor is to go to a Bug Squashing Party where someone could navigate a novice through a particular set of tools used for the release of a particular package. Alex.

On Monday, March 11 2019, Alex Volkov via talk wrote:
I'm writing this email not to start a flamewar about Debian, as I've been using it for more than 10 years and I'm pretty happy about the distribution, but I now I believe that the best way to become Debian contributor is to go to a Bug Squashing Party where someone could navigate a novice through a particular set of tools used for the release of a particular package.
Hey Alex, You might want to check your INBOX :-). Samuel Vale and I are organizing a BSP here in Toronto (which will likely happen by the end of April), and we tried to get in touch with you last week about a possible venue for the party. Thanks, -- Sergio GPG key ID: 237A 54B1 0287 28BF 00EF 31F4 D0EB 7628 65FC 5E36 Please send encrypted e-mail if possible http://sergiodj.net/

Hey Sergio, I just found the email from Samuel in my inbox -- it looked like a debian mailing list announcement, so I moved it to 'read later' pile. I'm sorry about that. This sounds like a great idea, I'm going to reply to you and Samuel off list. Alex. On 2019-03-11 2:18 p.m., Sergio Durigan Junior via talk wrote:
On Monday, March 11 2019, Alex Volkov via talk wrote:
I'm writing this email not to start a flamewar about Debian, as I've been using it for more than 10 years and I'm pretty happy about the distribution, but I now I believe that the best way to become Debian contributor is to go to a Bug Squashing Party where someone could navigate a novice through a particular set of tools used for the release of a particular package. Hey Alex,
You might want to check your INBOX :-). Samuel Vale and I are organizing a BSP here in Toronto (which will likely happen by the end of April), and we tried to get in touch with you last week about a possible venue for the party.
Thanks,
--- Talk Mailing List talk@gtalug.org https://gtalug.org/mailman/listinfo/talk

On Mon, 11 Mar 2019 at 14:40, Alex Volkov (A Valued Subscriber) via talk <talk@gtalug.org> wrote:
Hey Sergio,
I just found the email from Samuel in my inbox -- it looked like a debian mailing list announcement, so I moved it to 'read later' pile. I'm sorry about that.
This sounds like a great idea, I'm going to reply to you and Samuel off list.
Once you arrive at something, please be sure to make sure it is mentioned on-list, as others are doubtless going to be interested. (I am, for instance.) -- When confronted by a difficult problem, solve it by reducing it to the question, "How would the Lone Ranger handle this?"
participants (4)
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Alex Volkov
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Alex Volkov (A Valued Subscriber)
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Christopher Browne
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Sergio Durigan Junior