Project:Proxy Maintainers

The Proxy Maintainers Project is the primary contact point for users who are interested in maintaining packages in the official Gentoo package repository. We help users to adopt a package as their own, whether it be a previously abandoned one, or a new package. We also offer a framework in which users aid developers in maintaining their own packages under the supervision of the Proxy Maintainers Project.

We have a thriving community with an active group of developers who assist users with writing ebuilds and review their submissions. We welcome new users and encourage them to contact us and express their interest.

Enthusiasm
Proxied maintainers should be interested in the packages that they are maintaining. By becoming a proxied maintainer you become essentially the person in charge of that package in Gentoo. When users have questions regarding your package and how it works in Gentoo, you will be the person that those questions are directed towards. We would like you to enjoy the maintenance and not feel as though it is a chore. To that end we are looking for enthusiastic people.

Teamwork
You will be working with our team of developers who will assist and guide you toward ensuring that your submission meets the standards of the Gentoo QA policy. We will make sure that our feedback is productive and that you are treated with respect. Always remember that this is teamwork: you are working hand-in-hand with a developer who will provide you with constructive criticism. Do not be afraid to reach out and ask for assistance when needed.

Responsibility
As a proxied maintainer, not only you will be maintaining ebuilds, you will also be responsible for any bugs related to your package. It is important to have familiarity with the package you are interested in maintaining. You are signing up to maintain this package and keep it up-to-date in the long term. Your contributions directly affect the Gentoo Linux user base and they depend on you being responsible with your maintainership.

Patience
There are multiple actors involved in the package maintenance process: you will be interacting with the developers of the proxy maintainers team; you will be addressing users and asking for feedback on bugs; you may need to contact the upstream of your package on certain issues. Your submissions may require more work than you anticipate to meet the Gentoo QA standards, users can take a long time to respond, or the upstream may not be as cooperating as you expect. We understand that this can be frustrating for you and will do our best to aid you throughout the process. Nonetheless, patience is one of the key elements to successful maintainership.

Getting Started
There are multiple ways for getting involved with the Proxy Maintainers project:


 * When a developer stops maintaining a package, it becomes "orphaned" and gets added to the maintainer-needed list until a new maintainer comes in and claims it. You can contribute to the overall quality of the official package repository by volunteering to maintain packages from the maintainer-needed list. To adopt a maintainer-needed package, leave a comment on a bug for that package or contact us directly to make the request.


 * Similarly, when a user makes a new package request by creating a bug on Gentoo Bugzilla, the bug is assigned to 'maintainer-wanted@gentoo.org' and requires a maintainer to be added to the official package repository. You have the opportunity to take responsibility for the maintainer-wanted packages and have it added to the package repository. To adopt a maintainer-wanted package, leave a comment on a bug for that package or contact us directly to make the request.


 * The last way to get involved is by working alongside a developer on one of their own packages. Typically, this option is only available to the users after they have made significant contributions to the package. Users, who are interested in this option, are encouraged to contact both this project and the maintainer so that arrangements may be discussed.

Please remember that by volunteering, you are agreeing to take on the responsibilities for maintenance of the package, as described above.

It is highly recommended that users read through the resources available below so that they have a firm grasp on how to make their contributions, and ensure that those contributions meet the highest quality standards.

Resources

 * A guide to all things Proxy-Maint: Here you'll find useful information on interacting with developers and the project.  You'll find guidelines to follow while taking part in the project as well as policies that all participants are bound by.  There is also information on Proxy Maintainers' Quality Assurance standards and how to achieve them.


 * A Proxied Maintainer's Guide to Git: Useful git commands for contributing to the project via pull requests and patch submissions.


 * Project Policies and Guidelines: Both users and developers are encouraged to familiarize themselves with the inner workings of the project.


 * Proxy-Maintainer project initiative to clean up old Maintainer-Wanted bugs


 * IRC Meeting Logs