From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from lists.gentoo.org ([140.105.134.102] helo=robin.gentoo.org) by nuthatch.gentoo.org with esmtp (Exim 4.62) (envelope-from ) id 1HwGTc-0007uO-SB for garchives@archives.gentoo.org; Thu, 07 Jun 2007 11:48:29 +0000 Received: from robin.gentoo.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by robin.gentoo.org (8.14.0/8.14.0) with SMTP id l57Bkdmx012239; Thu, 7 Jun 2007 11:46:39 GMT Received: from mails.dtic.mil (mails.dtic.mil [131.84.1.19]) by robin.gentoo.org (8.14.0/8.14.0) with ESMTP id l57Bhl0x008504 for ; Thu, 7 Jun 2007 11:43:47 GMT Received: from [131.84.90.47] (sys947.dtic.mil [131.84.90.47]) by mails.dtic.mil (8.11.7p3+Sun/8.11.7) with ESMTP id l57BhkR28534 for ; Thu, 7 Jun 2007 07:43:46 -0400 (EDT) Message-ID: <4667EF71.9010103@gentoo.org> Date: Thu, 07 Jun 2007 07:43:45 -0400 From: Michael Cummings User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.0 (X11/20070326) Precedence: bulk List-Post: List-Help: List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Id: Gentoo Linux mail X-BeenThere: gentoo-dev@gentoo.org Reply-to: gentoo-dev@lists.gentoo.org MIME-Version: 1.0 To: gentoo-dev@lists.gentoo.org Subject: [gentoo-dev] [RFC] Non-Dev Contributors and the Tree X-Enigmail-Version: 0.95.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Archives-Salt: 210f918a-aee3-4d1b-bdbd-12f2ac46a349 X-Archives-Hash: 596934e627393b41b73ddbc16add6c04 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 ...or, Trees and Tree Climbers: Shaking up the tree Parts of this argument have been raised before. If this particular angle has already been addressed, kindly point me to the archive so I can see whether I have anything new and original to add or not. Please desist from simply flaming this as a "seen it, declined it" deal. I was listening to last night's recording of the Linux Link Tech Show, during which one of the Fedora leads was interviewed. During the course of his talk, he mentioned that Fedora had a 1000+ contributors, with only about 250 (ish) actual Fedora developers with commit rights to the final tree. This got me thinking about how Gentoo has historically handled contributors and the tree, and made me wonder if there weren't a better way that would help bolster direct community involvement without simultaneously overtaxing our existing infrastructure. One of Gentoo's flaws, and I can say this because I have been guilty of doing this at least once in the dim past, is that our work-from tree is the same one that the mirrors are reading and people are downloading to their desktops. A mistake in committing to CVS ruins it for everyone, with rapid (and rabid) users getting bit right after a --sync. We've done a good job of catching and correcting these incidents - but wouldn't it be nice if they couldn't happen as easily? One of the comments I hear frequently from active users is that they would love to be able to help maintain a package, or assist with what we do, but have neither the time nor the energy to become a full dev. Sure, we have the various overlays, bugzilla, and the home grown solutions that some teams have come up with, but there isn't a cohesive, unified approach to the issue of maintaining by proxy that I am aware of. What I would like to propose is that we have an official (yes, official) cvs overlay that is used by developers *and* contributors to commit new ebuilds and changes to. Mirrors would still pull, as they always have, from the gentoo-x86 cvs repo. "Official" Gentoo developers would then be able to take from the overlay and commit to the main tree at will, but have a common stomping ground for contributors and developers to work in without fear of breaking the rest of the tree. We reward those users (pardon the terms if you find that condescending, its not intended as such) with the drive and passion, but not the means, resources, or time, by making them contributors to this overlay, where they can make cvs commits. This overlay wouldn't necessarily need to be the whole of the tree, either. Some areas, such as profiles, could be absent, as well as select projects (perhaps the kernel and toolchain portions?). These contributors wouldn't need to have a flood of @gentoo.org email addresses - they are only contributors who, for whatever reason, are not actually full scale developers. What's the advantage to the developer community? I'm glad you asked :) I see a few benefits right from the start. First, it frees up some of the developers from the 'grind' of the bump-test-commit cycle. We (the Gentoo developers) didn't come here to be ebuild monkeys. We came here, gave our energy and time, so that we could help shape and make something out of this product. The bump and grind is a necessary part of it, but too often, especially for teams managing large segments (perl team being, obviously, no exception), that bump-test-commit cycle becomes the only thing you are ever doing. This might mean some developers, who joined Gentoo solely for the ability to commit new ebuilds and maintain a small segment of the tree, decide to downgrade themselves to contributor status. That isn't a bad thing, and I wouldn't suggest that it be compulsory either. But it would also mean that we would be opening the doors for those folks that actually want to help with the maintenance without the pressure and requirements of being a dev. Perhaps the definition and role of a dev would need to be modified, enhanced even, under this new guise, but I don't believe that to be a bad thing. What about the infrastructure requirements? Well, hopefully, A) we're scaled so that if we had a 1000 developers with cvs access we'd be ok anyway (in which case, under this proposal, there would be little difference - 1000 cvs accounts is a 1000 cvs accounts, no matter which way you slice it), and B) we'd only be talking about the *actual* cvs end of the house, not anything that would affect the mirrors. I wouldn't suggest that this additional cvs root be opened to the user community at large, or that the mirrors be asked to dup it as well. Since in my (limited?) vision this would only be a segment, albeit a sizable segment, I'll grant, it shouldn't exceed any of the current thresholds we have. As developers, we are already accustomed (and if not, what exactly are you maintaining in the tree??) to using a cvs checkout as an overlay. This would simply be adding another checkout - and, it strikes me, finally achieving the 'stable' vs 'development' branches of the tree. And yes, in case the question is posed, the 'stable' branch that is mirrored would still have ~arch'd material; removing testing ebuilds is not the intent. The intent is to open up the development and maintenance of the tree to the audience at large. And maybe even making the dev mailing list about development again, as devs that were formerly tied up in in the bump cycle are now free to do what they came here to do: have parties and lobby for the softserve machine. This email was not vetted by any member of infrastructure, or the developers at large (that's what I thought the -dev mailing list was a forum for, after all). I speak in hypotheticals and potentials here, not based on hard concrete facts, so some of my premises may be amiss. Yes, I believe we would need to create some new 'tools' (ok, shell scripts :) to help with some of the maintenance involved in this plan - but that should hardly be a hinderance, as I'm sure there's plenty of us that love sinking our teeth into a good shell script (or a bad one, as the case may be). Comments? ~mcummings P.S. Core readers, the irony isn't lost on me that I am posting to dev. Consider this my last ditch post about development on -dev :) - -- - -----o()o---------------------------------------------- Michael Cummings | #gentoo-dev, #gentoo-perl Gentoo Perl Dev | on irc.freenode.net Gentoo/SPARC Gentoo/AMD64 GPG: 0543 6FA3 5F82 3A76 3BF7 8323 AB5C ED4E 9E7F 4E2E - -----o()o---------------------------------------------- -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.4 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFGZ+9xq1ztTp5/Ti4RAmc2AKChahdXYyVViF1u7202XiypnoFybACgmx0/ 9VeDhgKjnMTE3WNFtYarU3w= =uOtS -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list