[gentoo-dev] FTR: media-optical@g.o has no developers

[gentoo-dev] FTR: media-optical@g.o has no developers

[Samuli Suominen]

For the record, media-optical herd is currently without any devs and
also the mail alias in d.g.o is empty so nobody is really reading the
bugmail.

In case you want to join it...

- Samuli

Notify people about empty herds (Was: Re: [gentoo-dev] FTR: media-optical@g.o has no developers)

[Pacho Ramos]

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El jue, 03-06-2010 a las 13:36 +0300, Samuli Suominen escribió:
> For the record, media-optical herd is currently without any devs and
> also the mail alias in d.g.o is empty so nobody is really reading the
> bugmail.
> 
> In case you want to join it...
> 
> - Samuli

Would be possible to modify script that generates
http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/metastructure/herds/herds.xml to list
empty herds on a different section at the top of the webpage for
detecting herds without people easier?

Even better would be to also provide information about "devway"
developers, indicating something like, for example:
41.  gnome
- Description
GNOME Desktop and related packages
- Herd maintainers' email address
gnome@gentoo.org
- Maintainers
...
pacho@gentoo.org (Pacho Ramos) (Devway)

But I am not sure if it would be possible :-/

Also, maybe we should consider change the assignment for bugs assigned
to empty herds, assigning them to maintainers-needed and CCing affected
herd, that way, once somebody revives the herd, he could simply revert
the assign to the old way and, until then, people reviewing
maintainers-needed bugs would also notice that bug reports.  

Thanks a lot

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Re: Notify people about empty herds (Was: Re: [gentoo-dev] FTR: media-optical@g.o has no developers)

[Markos Chandras]

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And maybe it would be a wise move to merge/remove some herds because ,as I
see, the number of herds is equal ( or even higher ) to the number of
developers.

2010/6/3 Pacho Ramos <pacho@gentoo.org>

> El jue, 03-06-2010 a las 13:36 +0300, Samuli Suominen escribió:
> > For the record, media-optical herd is currently without any devs and
> > also the mail alias in d.g.o is empty so nobody is really reading the
> > bugmail.
> >
> > In case you want to join it...
> >
> > - Samuli
>
> Would be possible to modify script that generates
> http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/metastructure/herds/herds.xml to list
> empty herds on a different section at the top of the webpage for
> detecting herds without people easier?
>
> Even better would be to also provide information about "devway"
> developers, indicating something like, for example:
> 41.  gnome
> - Description
> GNOME Desktop and related packages
> - Herd maintainers' email address
> gnome@gentoo.org
> - Maintainers
> ...
> pacho@gentoo.org (Pacho Ramos) (Devway)
>
> But I am not sure if it would be possible :-/
>
> Also, maybe we should consider change the assignment for bugs assigned
> to empty herds, assigning them to maintainers-needed and CCing affected
> herd, that way, once somebody revives the herd, he could simply revert
> the assign to the old way and, until then, people reviewing
> maintainers-needed bugs would also notice that bug reports.
>
> Thanks a lot
>

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Re: Notify people about empty herds (Was: Re: [gentoo-dev] FTR: media-optical@g.o has no developers)

["Paweł Hajdan, Jr."]

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On 6/3/10 3:32 PM, Markos Chandras wrote:
> And maybe it would be a wise move to merge/remove some herds because ,as I
> see, the number of herds is equal ( or even higher ) to the number of
> developers.

Here are some more empty herds:

1) kerberos herd is empty :(
2) secure-tunnelling is empty
3) utf8 is empty and looks like a candidate for removal

As for other herds, I don't see anything obviously wrong. It seems fine
and useful to have a generic alias even if there is only one developer
in a herd.

Paweł


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Re: Notify people about empty herds (Was: Re: [gentoo-dev] FTR: media-optical@g.o has no developers)

[Markos Chandras]

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all the gnome-* herds look obsolete to me. It should be like kde and use
only one alias. Further more the comm-fax could be merged with a net-*
alias, and all the desktop-* could be merged in one herd.  The dev-embedded
could be merged with embedded,  kernel can merge with kernel-misc. Plus I am
sure that we can perform a clean up/merge on net-* herds. Same rule for
sci-*. Having 150 herds for 300 *listed* devs doesn't seem optimal

On Thu, Jun 3, 2010 at 5:28 PM, "Paweł Hajdan, Jr."
<phajdan.jr@gentoo.org>wrote:

> On 6/3/10 3:32 PM, Markos Chandras wrote:
> > And maybe it would be a wise move to merge/remove some herds because ,as
> I
> > see, the number of herds is equal ( or even higher ) to the number of
> > developers.
>
> Here are some more empty herds:
>
> 1) kerberos herd is empty :(
> 2) secure-tunnelling is empty
> 3) utf8 is empty and looks like a candidate for removal
>
> As for other herds, I don't see anything obviously wrong. It seems fine
> and useful to have a generic alias even if there is only one developer
> in a herd.
>
> Paweł
>
>

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Re: Notify people about empty herds (Was: Re: [gentoo-dev] FTR: media-optical@g.o has no developers)

[Mike Pagano]

On Thursday, June 03, 2010 10:44:10 am Markos Chandras wrote:
>  kernel can merge with kernel-misc. 

Please don't do this.

Re: Notify people about empty herds (Was: Re: [gentoo-dev] FTR: media-optical@g.o has no developers)

[Jorge Manuel B. S. Vicetto]

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Hash: SHA1

On 03-06-2010 14:44, Markos Chandras wrote:
> all the gnome-* herds look obsolete to me. It should be like kde and use
> only one alias. Further more the comm-fax could be merged with a net-*
> alias, and all the desktop-* could be merged in one herd.

The desktop-effects herd has nothing to do with any of the other desktop
herds, so they shouldn't be merged.
Just because you don't understand why an herd exists or it looks
"obsolete" to you, it doesn't mean it doesn't have a meaning for the
people on the herd.

- -- 
Regards,

Jorge Vicetto (jmbsvicetto) - jmbsvicetto at gentoo dot org
Gentoo- forums / Userrel / Devrel / KDE / Elections
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Re: Notify people about empty herds (Was: Re: [gentoo-dev] FTR: media-optical@g.o has no developers)

[Markos Chandras]

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If this is what you understood then ok

On Thu, Jun 3, 2010 at 7:32 PM, Jorge Manuel B. S. Vicetto <
jmbsvicetto@gentoo.org> wrote:

> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> On 03-06-2010 14:44, Markos Chandras wrote:
> > all the gnome-* herds look obsolete to me. It should be like kde and use
> > only one alias. Further more the comm-fax could be merged with a net-*
> > alias, and all the desktop-* could be merged in one herd.
>
> The desktop-effects herd has nothing to do with any of the other desktop
> herds, so they shouldn't be merged.
> Just because you don't understand why an herd exists or it looks
> "obsolete" to you, it doesn't mean it doesn't have a meaning for the
> people on the herd.
>
> - --
> Regards,
>
> Jorge Vicetto (jmbsvicetto) - jmbsvicetto at gentoo dot org
> Gentoo- forums / Userrel / Devrel / KDE / Elections
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Re: Notify people about empty herds (Was: Re: [gentoo-dev] FTR: media-optical@g.o has no developers)

[Jeroen Roovers]

On Thu, 3 Jun 2010 17:44:10 +0300
Markos Chandras <hwoarang@gentoo.org> wrote:

> all the gnome-* herds look obsolete to me. It should be like kde and
> use only one alias. Further more the comm-fax could be merged with a
> net-* alias, and all the desktop-* could be merged in one herd.  The
> dev-embedded could be merged with embedded,  kernel can merge with
> kernel-misc. Plus I am sure that we can perform a clean up/merge on
> net-* herds. Same rule for sci-*.

Speaking for myself, the net-* and netmon herds are much too diverse to
pile onto one big stack. As with the other suggested herd mergers, you'd
merely end up piling more work onto unsuspecting developers' desktops,
possibly discouraging some of them to dig through all the extra
incoming mail. If any changes are made in this respect, it should have
the approval of all members of all herds considered for a merger.

> Having 150 herds for 300 *listed* devs doesn't seem optimal

You could qualify that statement a lot better. I don't see a problem
here. Many developers are members of more than one herd, which the
simple 2:1 relation you exemplify does not carry out that important bit
of information.

There is a real problem with herds that have a single or no
maintainer, the former mainly because that could very well lead to
another case of the latter, and we should certainly address both
problems, but we should create as little as possible new problems in
the process.


Regards,
     jer

Re: Notify people about empty herds (Was: Re: [gentoo-dev] FTR: media-optical@g.o has no developers)

[Ben de Groot]

On 3 June 2010 20:54, Jeroen Roovers <jer@gentoo.org> wrote:
> There is a real problem with herds that have a single or no
> maintainer, the former mainly because that could very well lead to
> another case of the latter, and we should certainly address both
> problems, but we should create as little as possible new problems in
> the process.

Also, there are herds that have several members, but none of them is
really active (games, most of the desktop-* herds, etc.). This also
leads to users being discouraged because the bugs they file are left
ignored.

This needs a structural solution. I think we need a team to
systematically look at open bugs and to notify the community of such
problematic herds. I imagine this would be a QA subproject.

Then we also need some structure to redirect some dev love to these
problematic areas. We need to advertise these needs more, to get
trusted users to proxy-maintain. We need to streamline the recruitment
process to make it easier for people who want to volunteer to become
devs. And I could go on for a while. There are a lot of areas where
Gentoo has a lot of room for improvement, and they all interlock.

I believe we need to formulate a vision of what we want Gentoo to be,
and then develop strategies of how to get there. Having a team that
systematically looks at the state of herds as well as open bugs is
--in my opinion-- a crucial first step to adress some of the
structural problems that have plagued Gentoo for years.


Cheers,
Ben

Re: Notify people about empty herds (Was: Re: [gentoo-dev] FTR: media-optical@g.o has no developers)

[Jeroen Roovers]

On Thu, 3 Jun 2010 22:35:04 +0200
Ben de Groot <yngwin@gentoo.org> wrote:

> Also, there are herds that have several members, but none of them is
> really active (games, most of the desktop-* herds, etc.). This also
> leads to users being discouraged because the bugs they file are left
> ignored.
> 
> This needs a structural solution. I think we need a team to
> systematically look at open bugs and to notify the community of such
> problematic herds. I imagine this would be a QA subproject.

That would basically be a task other than bug-wranglers, but jakub used
to do all this and I do it sometimes, among a few others who either
just scratch an itch or take a general interest. Maybe the
bug-wranglers project can be extended since it at least has some active
people (not just developers), but as it now stands there are again 150
unassigned bugs after only a week (up from ~40 since the last
reassignment run I believe).

"Calling in" QA as such usually isn't really beneficial.

> Then we also need some structure to redirect some dev love to these
> problematic areas. We need to advertise these needs more, to get
> trusted users to proxy-maintain. We need to streamline the recruitment
> process to make it easier for people who want to volunteer to become
> devs. And I could go on for a while. There are a lot of areas where
> Gentoo has a lot of room for improvement, and they all interlock.

All these problems seem to come down to the fact that we're
understaffed in most departments.

Setting up yet another project isn't going to help much. Just looking
at open bugs (bugzilla can help you figure out which bugs might need
someone's particular attention). What might help right now is look at
the herds.xml data and combining that with activity rates of the
developers in all herds. Herds with few developers and lots of open
bugs is something you could calculate and filter down into a monthly or
weekly report you send to a mailing list (probably dev-announce?).

> I believe we need to formulate a vision of what we want Gentoo to be,
> and then develop strategies of how to get there. Having a team that
> systematically looks at the state of herds as well as open bugs is
> --in my opinion-- a crucial first step to adress some of the
> structural problems that have plagued Gentoo for years.

Do you mean we should redefine what Gentoo is about, to satisfy the lack
of active developers? Bring down the number of packages? Or address the
staff shortage? That last one is rather old, as recruiters have been
clamouring for help for years now.


Regards,
     jer

Re: Notify people about empty herds (Was: Re: [gentoo-dev] FTR: media-optical@g.o has no developers)

[Ben de Groot]

On 4 June 2010 00:55, Jeroen Roovers <jer@gentoo.org> wrote:
> On Thu, 3 Jun 2010 22:35:04 +0200
> Ben de Groot <yngwin@gentoo.org> wrote:
>
>> Also, there are herds that have several members, but none of them is
>> really active (games, most of the desktop-* herds, etc.). This also
>> leads to users being discouraged because the bugs they file are left
>> ignored.
>>
>> This needs a structural solution. I think we need a team to
>> systematically look at open bugs and to notify the community of such
>> problematic herds. I imagine this would be a QA subproject.
>
> That would basically be a task other than bug-wranglers, but jakub used
> to do all this and I do it sometimes, among a few others who either
> just scratch an itch or take a general interest. Maybe the
> bug-wranglers project can be extended since it at least has some active
> people (not just developers), but as it now stands there are again 150
> unassigned bugs after only a week (up from ~40 since the last
> reassignment run I believe).

This is indeed not bug-wrangling. It's more "follow-up", making sure
things don't fall between the cracks *after* they have been assigned.

Because currently they do. Instead of involving more users with
development, we discourage them because their bugs are ignored.
Especially users who come with fixes and patches should be thanked and
encouraged. But too often they are frustrated because their bug is
assigned to a dev or herd who is inactive and unresponsive (for
possibly very valid reasons) and nobody is picking up the slack.

I think we can do better, and I believe there are enough people who
care, who would volunteer to form a team to take care of this.

> "Calling in" QA as such usually isn't really beneficial.

I'm sorry I wasn't clear enough on this point. I'm not "calling in"
QA. I say we need to form a new team to tackle this long-standing
problem. Like bug-wranglers, these volunteers would not need to be
devs, but could just as well be users who want to contribute. And they
could be joined by devs, who like me think this is an important issue
to address.

I think that this new team would naturally find its place within
Gentoo as a QA subproject, as this problem has a lot to do with QA
concerns. But it could also be linked to bug-wranglers or be
independant. That's mostly bikeshedding for me. I think some QA
supervision might be beneficial, especially since QA has the authority
to step in in certain cases. But let it be clear that I'm NOT saying
"this needs to be done, and QA must do it." I'm saying "this needs to
be done, and we should ask some people to volunteer."

>> Then we also need some structure to redirect some dev love to these
>> problematic areas. We need to advertise these needs more, to get
>> trusted users to proxy-maintain. We need to streamline the recruitment
>> process to make it easier for people who want to volunteer to become
>> devs. And I could go on for a while. There are a lot of areas where
>> Gentoo has a lot of room for improvement, and they all interlock.
>
> All these problems seem to come down to the fact that we're
> understaffed in most departments.

I think we can work on this from two sides:

1: Motivate the people we have. Make their work more efficient. Find
out why people are retiring. For people who are retiring for
Gentoo-internal reasons, let's improve things so they will be more
motivated to stay.

2: Make it easier and more rewarding for people to start contributing.
We can expand proxy-maintainership (many users don't even know this is
possible). We can reform the recruitment process, so that it will be
less of a bottleneck (for example by putting much more responsibility
into the hands of our mentors, like we discussed on IRC). We also need
to communicate better what we need. Put specific recruitment calls on
our frontpage, on the forums. More actively engage contributing users
(on bugzilla, sunrise, etc.) to set the next step.

> Setting up yet another project isn't going to help much.

Not by itself. But in my opinion this is a structural problem that
needs a structural solution. If you have other ideas of how to do
this, let's hear them and discuss them, and find out which we think
are likely to give us the best results. My concern is that we tackle
the problem. The how is just a tool.

> Just looking
> at open bugs (bugzilla can help you figure out which bugs might need
> someone's particular attention). What might help right now is look at
> the herds.xml data and combining that with activity rates of the
> developers in all herds. Herds with few developers and lots of open
> bugs is something you could calculate and filter down into a monthly or
> weekly report you send to a mailing list (probably dev-announce?).

Yes, this could be a very valuable tool.

>> I believe we need to formulate a vision of what we want Gentoo to be,
>> and then develop strategies of how to get there. Having a team that
>> systematically looks at the state of herds as well as open bugs is
>> --in my opinion-- a crucial first step to adress some of the
>> structural problems that have plagued Gentoo for years.
>
> Do you mean we should redefine what Gentoo is about, to satisfy the lack
> of active developers? Bring down the number of packages? Or address the
> staff shortage? That last one is rather old, as recruiters have been
> clamouring for help for years now.

Not so much redefine, but clarify. What is Gentoo really about? What
kind of distro are we? What are our goals? What are our values?

We want to be the best distro for power users. At least, that is how I
have always understood Gentoo. What else is part of that vision? Can
we put that into a clear mission statement, into defined goals and
values?

This is going a bit off-topic. Maybe we should split this part off
into its own discussion?

A clear vision and defined goals will show us what our priorities are.
And in my vision for Gentoo nothing falls between the cracks. So it
would be a priority to detect those cracks, and to recruit volunteers
to close specific holes. If we agree on what our priorities are, on
what our goals are, we have a better change to succesfully attain
them.

Cheers,
Ben

Re: Notify people about empty herds (Was: Re: [gentoo-dev] FTR: media-optical@g.o has no developers)

[Eray Aslan]

On Thu, Jun 03, 2010 at 04:28:57PM +0200, "Paweł Hajdan, Jr." wrote:
> 1) kerberos herd is empty :(

FWIW, I proxy maintain app-crypt/heimdal, app-crypt/mit-krb5,
app-crypt/mit-krb5-appl and sys-auth/pam_krb5.  Thanks to darkside and
flameeyes for their help.

-- 
Eray

Re: [gentoo-dev] FTR: media-optical@g.o has no developers

[Steve Dibb]

On 06/03/2010 04:36 AM, Samuli Suominen wrote:
> For the record, media-optical herd is currently without any devs and
> also the mail alias in d.g.o is empty so nobody is really reading the
> bugmail.
>
> In case you want to join it...
>

Added myself back.

Steve

Re: [gentoo-dev] FTR: media-optical@g.o has no developers

[Steve Dibb]

On 06/03/2010 08:12 AM, Steve Dibb wrote:
> On 06/03/2010 04:36 AM, Samuli Suominen wrote:
>> For the record, media-optical herd is currently without any devs and
>> also the mail alias in d.g.o is empty so nobody is really reading the
>> bugmail.
>>
>> In case you want to join it...
>>
>
> Added myself back.
>

But we still need more devs working on it. :)

Steve