Re: [gnu.org #1783839] Updating info about fencepost account availability

[John Darrington]

My understanding was that all *may* have an account, but only some *do* have
an account.  In other words, the process is not automatic.  I was a GNU 
maintainer
for about 15 years before I got an account.

If the FSF sysadmins can arrange for it, I would be quite happy for our 
maintainers
file to be linked to an LDAP resource so that it becomes automatic.  This would
be very helpful at weeding out accounts for people who stepped down and ceased
contribution many years ago.

J'

On Wed, Dec 01, 2021 at 09:47:38PM -0500, Jason Self via RT wrote:
     On Wed Dec 01 15:23:43 2021, Andrew Engelbrecht <andrew@fsf.org> wrote:
     > Hello GNU webmasters,
     > 
     > The following page seems to imply that any GNU contributor may have a
     > fencepost account. In actuality, only a subset of GNU maintainers have
     > acess, aside from edge cases like some webmasters, FSF interns, etc.
     > As far as I can tell, the maintainers who do have access tend to be
     > either the sole maintainer of a given package, or they serve an
     > administrative role for that package. The way I know which maintainers
     > to accept is according to a file maintained by the maintainers@gnu.org
     > volunteers.
     > 
     > We shouldn't include all of that detail, but it would be helpful if we
     > say that some, but not all contributors to GNU may have an account.
     > 
     > If it stays the same, it's not a big deal, but would likely lead to a
     > little less frustration for people applying for and being rejected
     > from getting a fencepost account.
     > 
     > https://www.gnu.org/software/README.accounts.html
     > 
     > Thanks, : )
     > Andrew
     
     If access to fencepost is intended only for maintainers (since the 
sysadmins check the maintainers file), maybe this page can be merged into 
maintain.texi and deleted.
     
     Add bug-standards@gnu.org to see what they say on the topic.