Re: [gentoo-dev] [RFC] QA Team's role

My personal opinion here is that a _LOT_ of this should be common sense.
But just to put in my two pennies..

On Sun, Feb 26, 2006 at 05:22:17PM -0500, Mark Loeser <halcy0n@g.o> wrote:
> * The QA team's purpose is to provide cross-herd assistance in keeping
>   the tree in a good state. This is done primarily by finding and pointing
>   out issues to maintainers and, where necessary, taking direct action.

Please clarify "neccessary". I don't want to see repeat occurances of
non-issues bogging down real work. Also, please define around this a
clear and documented policy so when its enforced, its well defended.

> * The QA team may also offer to fix obvious typos and similar minor
>   issues, and silence from the package maintainers can be taken as agreement in
>   such situations.

I have no objections, on the understanding that there is a definitive
understanding of whats being changed and legitimate things aren't
accidentally replaced.

> * In case of emergency, or if package maintainers refuse to cooperate,
>   the QA team may take action themselves to fix the problem.

This is part and parcel of your first point and should be included as
part of that. ie: definition of neccessary and surrounding policy.

> * In the event that a developer still insists that a package does not
>   break QA standards, an appeal can be made at the next council meeting. The
>   package should be dealt with per QA's request until such a time that a
>   decision is made by the council.

as above.

> * In the case of disagreement on policy among QA members, the majority
>   of established QA members must agree with the action.

Perhaps pushing it to an open forum on -dev/-core for consensus works
better here?

> * Just because a particular QA violation has yet to cause an issue does
>   not change the fact that it is still a QA violation.

Is this a statement or a policy? I assume that if this is policy the
non-visible issue would go about appropriate scrutany, and in turn a
long-term solution made in the situation where it is not easily
resolvable/avoidable.

> * If a particular developer persistently causes breakage, the QA team
>   may request that devrel re-evaluates that developer's commit rights.
>   Evidence of past breakages will be presented with this request to
>   devrel.

This is the case at the moment anyways isn't it? And this shouldn't be
in a QA capacity but as a herd or individual. Perhaps this is better
suited in a different proposal?

> * The QA team will maintain a list of current "QA Standards".  The list
>   is not meant by any means to be a comprehensive document, but rather a
>   dynamic document that will be updated as new problems are discovered.
>

Can I suggest that such a document is also refered to by the policy
surrounding a violations resolution. Especially when considering a
violation which is not documented (and therefore can be fairly unknown)
so that violations not listed might be treated with more tact.

Thanks for presenting this to the list.
- John

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