Re: Potential issues for most ports (Was: Re: Bits from the Release Team (Jessie freeze info))

On 2013-11-03 23:04, Steve Langasek wrote:
> On Sun, Nov 03, 2013 at 11:54:34AM +0100, Niels Thykier wrote:
>> [...]
> 
>> I suppose a "sponsor-only" DD could be sufficient, provided that the
>> sponsor knows the porters well enough to be willing to sign off on e.g.
>> access to porter boxes.  I guess the sponsor would also need to dedicate
>> time to mentor (new?) porters on workflows and on quicks like when is a
>> FTBFS RC and when it isn't etc.
> 
> Why would the sponsor need to be involved in getting the porters access to
> porter boxes?  Porter boxes exist so that DDs *not* involved in a port have
> access to a machine of the architecture and can keep their packages working.
> I've never heard of a porter who didn't have access to their own box for
> porting work.
> 

I will not rule out that it was a poor choice of example on my part for
ia64 (and maybe powerpc), which is(/are) the concrete port(s) we would
be talking in this case.
  That said, it is my understanding that "one does not simply own an
s390(x)"[1].  Nor would I be concerned to have arm porters that worked
on all 3 arm ports while possessing hardware only for a (non-empty)
subset of those architectures.

~Niels

[1] I certainly wouldn't have space for something like this:

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Z800_2066_JKU.jpeg

(and much less the money.  Yeah I know that is technically not an s390,
but as I understand it, an s390 should be "around that size")