RaphaelHertzog: if you edit this page to add comments, please sign your comment. Place your comment as sub-list-items if you respond to a point. You can add new signed top-level entries if needed. I'll try to make it evolve according to comments (and still keep it coherent), don't rework it completely on your own. Feel free to join #debian-newmaint on irc.debian.org to discuss with me and other interested people.

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Summary

This specification aims to design a new process for accepting new members in the Debian project.

Rationale

The NM process is working well to select technically good people who are packagers and who are heavily involved in Debian. But it's clearly suboptimal for all other kinds of contributors that deserve to be part of our project. The DM concept has introduced a new way to contribute. It looks like many DD felt it was wrong to create DM completely disconnected from NM.

Thus this is an attempt to supersede the NM process by a more generic "membership" process which includes the process to become a DD and much more.

We don't want to micro-manage every implementation details but we want to give clear guidelines and setup the basic building blocks required for this improved process.

Use Cases

Design

Categorization of contributors

Let's define what's common to all contributors (and what want to be common) and what's specific to each category.

Common guidelines

Definition of developers (DD)

Definition of maintainers (DM)

Definition of artists

Definition of translators

Definition of documentation writers

Processes

Let's try to define what processes are needed.

Becoming member (common to all categories)

Becoming developer

Becoming maintainer

Becoming artist

Becoming translator

Becoming documentation writer

Implementation

Outstanding Issues


CategorySpec