Re: [gentoo-dev] Things one could be upset about

[Róbert Čerňanský]

On Sat, 17 Jan 2015 13:44:21 +0100
Dirkjan Ochtman <djc@g.o> wrote:

> On Sat, Jan 17, 2015 at 12:35 PM, Patrick Lauer <patrick@g.o>
> wrote:
>
> > * Some stable bugs are left alone for months
> >    See e.g. https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=485632
> >    Fix: Have more people work on stable bugs
> >    Fix: Motivate people to file more stable bugs (continuous
> > updates)
>
> This is a thorny problem as well. I worry that we lose momentum here
> due to size and perfectionism (e.g. we can only stable new gcc once we
> fix all the blockers, and we don't have enough active maintainers on
> some of those blockers). I think we should maybe stabilize more
> optimistically
[...]
> I also wonder if we could sort of crowd-source archtesting, maybe by
> having people contribute their package.keywords through gentoo-stats
> or some such to see how well an unstable package is being tested on
> stable systems already.

This could help in a sense that developers would have more confidence
when stabilizing packages.  But even without such statistics there is
for example the number of open bugs that gives a clue about the
quality of a package.  It should be used to drive stabilizations in
the spirit of good old rule "1 month without bugs => stabilize". At
least for less critical packages, mainly end-user applications.  I
recall that some time ago there were some activities regarding this
rule but I am not sure if it is in place.  So I would add one more fix
for this issue:
Fix: Apply "1 month without bugs => stabilize" rule more often.

Also I think that end-user applications could be stabilized little
more aggresivelly while libraries could keep current conservative
approach.

For example, having installed ~1700 packages of which ~500 are in
world file, recent update world after two months gave me: 292 packages
(183 upgrades, 60 new, 4 in new slots, 45 reinstalls).  However
counting number of end-user applications that were updated I end up
with 9 of them of which only 6 was a somewhat major update that could
bring new features.  (I do not consider system utilites -- like for
example lsof -- as end-user applications even that number of them are
in my world file.)

So if you look to it from this perspective such update does not look
very efficient since out of ~300 builded packages only 6 brings
potential to increase productivity/bring new features.  Such
experiences brings me to conclusion that end-user applications may be
stabilized more often.

Regards,
Robert


-- 
Róbert Èeròanský
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