Hi
Am 2026-03-28 11:56, schrieb Jordi Kroon:
What was the initial idea to split between rookies and veterans?
As a candidate for 8.6 it feels as a chance/opportunity to get more
involved, and to build up experience as a RM (and more) as opposed to a
veteran who already had the opportunity to do so.
With the new policy it would essentially allow only veterans to be RM
with 2 hands-on and 1 hands-off and perhaps include more favoritism to
a more experienced RM rather than someone with a clean record. The
terminology of rookie lowers the bar a little to allow this in my
opinion.
It is certainly not my intention to exclude “rookies” from the RM role.
As I mentioned in my reply to Ben, the “term limit” in the policy
explicitly exists to ensure that there won't be the same few folks every
year. The policy just specifies a requirement of a veteran for the
“off-hands” release manager, because they are only there for advice and
backup purposes, which is a role that benefits from the veteran
knowledge.
Given that this time we have two applications that would qualify as a
veteran RM, I feel there is some ambiguity with setting up the vote that
would not exist if folks would apply specifically for either “hands-on”,
“hands-off” or “both”. As an example, did the veteran RMs only apply
with the expectation that they would not be involved in the daily
business (as was the case in the past few releases)? If more than one
veteran would be voted in, would anyone of them want retract their
application to “leave room” for a rookie? What if none of the veterans
are amongst the first 3? With explicit “hands-on” and “hands-off”
applications the “time investment” expectations are clear and it's also
clear that it would be two separate votes, one selecting two “hands-on”
release managers, one selecting a “hands-off” release manager (where
only veterans may apply).
The veteran is there to advise the others. I don’t see why this needs
to be hands-off. As long as there are always 2 hands-on available. So
to that I am in favour of Ben’s wording.
If all three RMs would be actively involved in the release process, I
would want all three of them to be blocked from becoming RM for another
release for the reasons I mentioned in my reply to Ben. My observations
of the past several releases were that there already effectively was a
“hands on” and “hands off” split, with the rookie RMs doing the daily
business and the veteran RM not being actively involved (at least not
publicly). Communication-wise as a core developer, I also feel that it
was helpful to have just two direct and authoritative contacts in case
of questions or when decisions need to be made where I could trust the
opinion of any one of those two. If there were three active RMs, I feel
like I would want a 2 of 3-person agreement, which just adds overhead to
the communication.
Best regards
Tim Düsterhus
