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On Mon, Apr 1, 2013 at 7:41 AM, Tom Wijsman <TomWij@g.o> wrote: |
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> 1. Get more people to join these herds (devs, future recruits, ...) |
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> and set up project, leads and proper organization. This is the least |
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> confusing approach; since the same work is done but just by more |
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> people, which tackles the communication and workload problems. |
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> |
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|
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Sure, non-controversial IF there is interest. |
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> 2. Combine multiple herds in one bigger "network" herd. If we can't |
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> just magically get more developers to join these herds, we could put |
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> all the developers from these herds in one bigger herd to force them |
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> to organize and communicate. Get one bigger group to pay attention |
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> to the bugs, without caring whether there is a personal interest or |
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> not; when you are interested in networking, there should be no |
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> problem to occasionally deal with another package as well. |
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> |
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|
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I REALLY don't think this is a good idea. You might as just have one |
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big herd and call it "maintainer-wanted" or even "gentoo." |
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|
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Individual devs work because there is somebody who is accountable for |
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keeping at least a reasonable level of quality, and their pride is |
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likely to spur them on to take care of the package. |
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|
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Active herds work because there is a team with a leader who |
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collectively don't want to look bad when things aren't working. The |
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herd could have a large or small project team looking after it - it |
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just matters that they care. |
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|
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When you lump a bunch of stuff into a big amorphous blob and put 47 |
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people in charge of it, then nobody really cares about anything. It |
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just results in 47 people with bugzilla in their killfile. |
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I suspect that the only reason some devs are listed in herds that |
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appear inactive is that at some point in time they were the sole |
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maintainer of a single package they actually cared about, and somebody |
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decided to put that package in a herd, and then the dev got added to |
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the alias so that they were still "allowed" to maintain it (or some |
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variation on that theme). The dev really could care less about the |
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other 47 packages in the herd. |
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|
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Devs should really review the aliases they are attached to and edit |
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for relevance. That said, sometimes there is a need to belong to an |
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alias even if a dev only contributes to a narrow scope of work. It |
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isn't a problem as long as the team is active in general. |
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> 3. The one you suggest, which would be the approach to go for if |
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> it is unreasonable to salvage the network herd(s). The problem here |
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> is that you don't know in advance what will happen with the |
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> packages; this may yield a lot of unmaintained packages that are |
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> later dropped from the tree while they work just fine. |
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> |
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|
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If no herd forms, the list of affected packages should be announced, |
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and if nobody adds themselves to the metadata within n days they go to |
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maintainer-needed. |
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|
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As I've stated before maintainer-needed packages should only be |
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treecleaned if they are, in fact, broken (a few debatable cases have |
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come up, but for the most part this is what happens). A few bugs that |
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don't impact most users in a serious way should not be grounds for |
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removal. However, if the package has a blocker or serious quality |
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issue then it should be removed. Things won't get any better by |
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listing an email address that nobody follows in the metadata (an email |
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that 50 people get and all ignore is no better). |
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As far as improving manpower and such - I think everybody is |
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supportive of this. However, it is important that Gentoo not be held |
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back by not wanting to break packages that aren't maintained - |
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otherwise it will become irrelevant. Proxy maintenance is better |
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supported now than it ever has been in the past, so if people want to |
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step up without having to become devs they should do so. |
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|
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Rich |