* Re: [gentoo-project] The problem of defunct and undermanned projects in Gentoo
2017-07-18 21:40 ` Michał Górny
@ 2017-07-18 21:44 ` M. J. Everitt
2017-07-19 17:25 ` Alec Warner
2017-07-19 17:34 ` Ian Stakenvicius
2 siblings, 0 replies; 16+ messages in thread
From: M. J. Everitt @ 2017-07-18 21:44 UTC (permalink / raw
To: gentoo-project
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On 18/07/17 22:40, Michał Górny wrote:
> On wto, 2017-07-18 at 22:35 +0100, M. J. Everitt wrote:
>> On 18/07/17 22:23, Kent Fredric wrote:
>>> On Tue, 18 Jul 2017 22:12:45 +0100
>>> "M. J. Everitt" <m.j.everitt@iee.org> wrote:
>>>
>>>> I think mgorny was doing some general commit stats, and I have yet to
>>>> compile my own, but it would be very interesting to see how many
>>>> 'active' team members there were in any given project. I suspect the
>>>> results could be very telling ...
>>> Its not even like they're "inactive", they're just not active *in the team*.
>>>
>>> For some, there's no reason for them to devaway:
>>>
>>> - They're on IRC
>>> - They commit daily
>>>
>>> But they're on teams they seldom do things in.
>>>
>>> This is probably more true the more teams you're on.
>> Then why are you 'in' the team.. I mean, there's one thing to idle on an
>> IRC channel, but membership does normally imply some form of
>> contribution, no? Or is it just to make you 'look'
>> interested/popular/part-of-the-furniture ....
> Well, that *is* a problem. However, we are supposed to be friendly
> and nice, and not tell other developers that they have done literally
> nothing during the 2 years they're part of some project. That could
> discourage them from contributing.
>
> You are also not supposed to try to offload yourself and distribute
> the work to them. That's bossing around, and it discourages others from
> actually doing anything.
>
> So, well, you're just supposed to smile and thank them for doing nothing
> for the project because otherwise they could feel offended
> and discouraged from doing anything,
>
Very diplomatically put ... *takes hat off* ...
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^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 16+ messages in thread
* Re: [gentoo-project] The problem of defunct and undermanned projects in Gentoo
2017-07-18 21:40 ` Michał Górny
2017-07-18 21:44 ` M. J. Everitt
@ 2017-07-19 17:25 ` Alec Warner
2017-07-19 20:11 ` James Le Cuirot
2017-07-19 17:34 ` Ian Stakenvicius
2 siblings, 1 reply; 16+ messages in thread
From: Alec Warner @ 2017-07-19 17:25 UTC (permalink / raw
To: gentoo-project
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On Tue, Jul 18, 2017 at 5:40 PM, Michał Górny <mgorny@gentoo.org> wrote:
> On wto, 2017-07-18 at 22:35 +0100, M. J. Everitt wrote:
> > On 18/07/17 22:23, Kent Fredric wrote:
> > > On Tue, 18 Jul 2017 22:12:45 +0100
> > > "M. J. Everitt" <m.j.everitt@iee.org> wrote:
> > >
> > > > I think mgorny was doing some general commit stats, and I have yet to
> > > > compile my own, but it would be very interesting to see how many
> > > > 'active' team members there were in any given project. I suspect the
> > > > results could be very telling ...
> > >
> > > Its not even like they're "inactive", they're just not active *in the
> team*.
> > >
> > > For some, there's no reason for them to devaway:
> > >
> > > - They're on IRC
> > > - They commit daily
> > >
> > > But they're on teams they seldom do things in.
> > >
> > > This is probably more true the more teams you're on.
> >
> > Then why are you 'in' the team.. I mean, there's one thing to idle on an
> > IRC channel, but membership does normally imply some form of
> > contribution, no? Or is it just to make you 'look'
> > interested/popular/part-of-the-furniture ....
>
> Well, that *is* a problem. However, we are supposed to be friendly
> and nice, and not tell other developers that they have done literally
> nothing during the 2 years they're part of some project. That could
> discourage them from contributing.
>
> You are also not supposed to try to offload yourself and distribute
> the work to them. That's bossing around, and it discourages others from
> actually doing anything.
>
> So, well, you're just supposed to smile and thank them for doing nothing
> for the project because otherwise they could feel offended
> and discouraged from doing anything,
>
I am reading a lot of frustration in your comments. I know I have been on a
team(s) where this was the case and it was difficult to resolve. I've also
been that person who doesn't contribute but "hangs around". It might be
possible to think about better ways to measure progress and staffing than
just 'people'. Its pretty clear that 'people on the team' has little
relation to 'work done by the team'. So lets try to break that entirely?
I want to be clear that "being friendly and nice" is not necessarily the
reason why we do not encourage the behavior you state. I suspect telling
people they have not done anything recently doesn't necessarily encourage
them to do stuff. Most of them have actual reasons for not contributing
(whatever they may be) and often a simple conversation doesn't magically
free up time for them, nor encourage them to start doing more.
When I read your comments I see some issues being raised:
How do you recruit new people to join a team that already has "a lot of
people" working on problems?
How do you set up incentives to entice existing team members to contribute
more?
Why do people who do nothing stick around?
The most obvious thing to change is what I mentioned earlier, stop focusing
on "number of humans" and focus on things like "backlog of work for team"
and "velocity of team." Note that this requires ~agreement on what other
metric to use (like bug backlog) and tools to measure the backlog and
velocity. The GMN used to have some of these metrics for bugs.
So one idea might be to measure bug backlog and bug velocity. Teams that
have a backlog that is not growing at a large rate, or even teams with
positive velocity (they tend to close all of their bugs eventually or keep
the backlog in a specific range) probably don't need operational help (they
are correctly staffed for their workload.) Teams that have a growing
backlog and negative velocity are understaffed (they will only get further
and further behind.)
Note that these metrics don't necessarily care about the number of people
on the project, or how much each person contributes. It only cares about
the velocity of the project as a whole in relation to their bug queue. Its
certainly not how many projects will want to work (many teams want to keep
bugs open forever, for example.) In the past I've seen a bug "purgatory"
type label used for this, where bugs that someone looked at and decided
"well this is useful to keep open but isn't on the roadmap or we don't
necessarily plan on doing it" gets pushed into the "Purgatory"; it stays in
the bug system (open even!) but we don't count purgatory bugs as part of
the backlog.
I suspect this type of thing would be tough to deploy in Gentoo as a whole
(because people enjoy their particular way of managing their project and
dislike change) but its one idea to try to manage staffing of teams via
different metrics. It also requires a manager; someone who cares about the
bug metrics, to actually look at the metrics and manage the backlog. Given
existing team managers also do not look at their staffing numbers (e.g. the
staffing needs page is poorly maintained) I'm not convinced adopting a
different solution will necessarily have good effects. In the end someone
inside of Gentoo needs to care about things like sourcing, staffing, and
recruiting. Recruiters certainly care about the latter; but I'm not sure
the former has any particular owner.
I'm not sure how we can incentivize developers to contribute more. One
thing we did in the past to recognize developers was to interview them in
the GMN. I had considered doing a similar thing like "top developer of the
month" or something to reward contributions in some way. I had also
considered taking Google's "peer bonus" concept and trying to reward
exceptional contributions with Foundation money (via some kind of voting
process or having the council give out awards or something.) However that
had numerous legal implications (and tax implications for the receiver) and
so it was nixed.
For people who just 'hang around' I think Gentoo as a whole could offer
clearer developer emeritus benefits that might convince people who are not
doing a whole lot to actually accept retirement / emeritus status. A lot of
people stick around to be 'in the group' and to keep their email. As long
as they remain in one project they can stick around! We have the
undertakers project and they do great work; but it can still take many
months / years to actually retire someone determined to stick around but
not contributing anything meaningful.
-A
> --
> Best regards,
> Michał Górny
>
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^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 16+ messages in thread
* Re: [gentoo-project] The problem of defunct and undermanned projects in Gentoo
2017-07-19 17:25 ` Alec Warner
@ 2017-07-19 20:11 ` James Le Cuirot
0 siblings, 0 replies; 16+ messages in thread
From: James Le Cuirot @ 2017-07-19 20:11 UTC (permalink / raw
To: gentoo-project
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On Wed, 19 Jul 2017 13:25:31 -0400
Alec Warner <antarus@gentoo.org> wrote:
> On Tue, Jul 18, 2017 at 5:40 PM, Michał Górny <mgorny@gentoo.org> wrote:
>
> > On wto, 2017-07-18 at 22:35 +0100, M. J. Everitt wrote:
> > > On 18/07/17 22:23, Kent Fredric wrote:
> > > > On Tue, 18 Jul 2017 22:12:45 +0100
> > > > "M. J. Everitt" <m.j.everitt@iee.org> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > > I think mgorny was doing some general commit stats, and I have yet to
> > > > > compile my own, but it would be very interesting to see how many
> > > > > 'active' team members there were in any given project. I suspect the
> > > > > results could be very telling ...
> > > >
> > > > Its not even like they're "inactive", they're just not active *in the
> > team*.
> > > >
> > > > For some, there's no reason for them to devaway:
> > > >
> > > > - They're on IRC
> > > > - They commit daily
> > > >
> > > > But they're on teams they seldom do things in.
> > > >
> > > > This is probably more true the more teams you're on.
> > >
> > > Then why are you 'in' the team.. I mean, there's one thing to idle on an
> > > IRC channel, but membership does normally imply some form of
> > > contribution, no? Or is it just to make you 'look'
> > > interested/popular/part-of-the-furniture ....
> >
> > Well, that *is* a problem. However, we are supposed to be friendly
> > and nice, and not tell other developers that they have done literally
> > nothing during the 2 years they're part of some project. That could
> > discourage them from contributing.
> >
>
> > You are also not supposed to try to offload yourself and distribute
> > the work to them. That's bossing around, and it discourages others from
> > actually doing anything.
> >
> > So, well, you're just supposed to smile and thank them for doing nothing
> > for the project because otherwise they could feel offended
> > and discouraged from doing anything,
> >
>
> I am reading a lot of frustration in your comments. I know I have been on a
> team(s) where this was the case and it was difficult to resolve. I've also
> been that person who doesn't contribute but "hangs around". It might be
> possible to think about better ways to measure progress and staffing than
> just 'people'. Its pretty clear that 'people on the team' has little
> relation to 'work done by the team'. So lets try to break that entirely?
>
> I want to be clear that "being friendly and nice" is not necessarily the
> reason why we do not encourage the behavior you state. I suspect telling
> people they have not done anything recently doesn't necessarily encourage
> them to do stuff. Most of them have actual reasons for not contributing
> (whatever they may be) and often a simple conversation doesn't magically
> free up time for them, nor encourage them to start doing more.
...
> The most obvious thing to change is what I mentioned earlier, stop focusing
> on "number of humans" and focus on things like "backlog of work for team"
> and "velocity of team." Note that this requires ~agreement on what other
> metric to use (like bug backlog) and tools to measure the backlog and
> velocity. The GMN used to have some of these metrics for bugs.
>
> So one idea might be to measure bug backlog and bug velocity. Teams that
> have a backlog that is not growing at a large rate, or even teams with
> positive velocity (they tend to close all of their bugs eventually or keep
> the backlog in a specific range) probably don't need operational help (they
> are correctly staffed for their workload.) Teams that have a growing
> backlog and negative velocity are understaffed (they will only get further
> and further behind.)
>
> Note that these metrics don't necessarily care about the number of people
> on the project, or how much each person contributes. It only cares about
> the velocity of the project as a whole in relation to their bug queue. Its
> certainly not how many projects will want to work (many teams want to keep
> bugs open forever, for example.) In the past I've seen a bug "purgatory"
> type label used for this, where bugs that someone looked at and decided
> "well this is useful to keep open but isn't on the roadmap or we don't
> necessarily plan on doing it" gets pushed into the "Purgatory"; it stays in
> the bug system (open even!) but we don't count purgatory bugs as part of
> the backlog.
Definitely have to agree with this. I'm on the games team but I haven't
done all that much for that project yet. That's largely because I'm
lead of the Java team and I don't feel I'm doing enough there either.
That doesn't mean I want to leave the games team and there is plenty
I'd like to do given the time. I may still fix up the odd thing here
and there and that's certainly better than nothing.
I think there's also another angle to this, particularly when it comes
to Java. I don't think it matters how many developers we can
realistically get, the traditional approach to Java packaging stopped
being scalable years ago. That backlog is growing and we're never going
to catch it up short of taking extremely radical action. This is a hard
problem to solve. I have some ideas but once again, it needs time.
Knowing that our current course is hopeless is also very demotivating
and that just makes a bad situation even worse. I don't want to waste
time doing fruitless package bumps. When users hop onto IRC
enthusiastically asking whether they can package some shiny new thing,
it pains me to tell them that it's probably much harder than they think
and they'd also be wasting their time.
--
James Le Cuirot (chewi)
Gentoo Linux Developer
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^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 16+ messages in thread
* Re: [gentoo-project] The problem of defunct and undermanned projects in Gentoo
2017-07-18 21:40 ` Michał Górny
2017-07-18 21:44 ` M. J. Everitt
2017-07-19 17:25 ` Alec Warner
@ 2017-07-19 17:34 ` Ian Stakenvicius
2017-07-19 18:22 ` Rich Freeman
2017-07-20 2:15 ` Aaron Bauman
2 siblings, 2 replies; 16+ messages in thread
From: Ian Stakenvicius @ 2017-07-19 17:34 UTC (permalink / raw
To: gentoo-project
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On 18/07/17 05:40 PM, Michał Górny wrote:
> On wto, 2017-07-18 at 22:35 +0100, M. J. Everitt wrote:
>> On 18/07/17 22:23, Kent Fredric wrote:
>>> On Tue, 18 Jul 2017 22:12:45 +0100
>>> "M. J. Everitt" <m.j.everitt@iee.org> wrote:
>>>
>>>> I think mgorny was doing some general commit stats, and I have yet to
>>>> compile my own, but it would be very interesting to see how many
>>>> 'active' team members there were in any given project. I suspect the
>>>> results could be very telling ...
>>>
>>> Its not even like they're "inactive", they're just not active *in the team*.
>>>
>>> For some, there's no reason for them to devaway:
>>>
>>> - They're on IRC
>>> - They commit daily
>>>
>>> But they're on teams they seldom do things in.
>>>
>>> This is probably more true the more teams you're on.
>>
>> Then why are you 'in' the team.. I mean, there's one thing to idle on an
>> IRC channel, but membership does normally imply some form of
>> contribution, no? Or is it just to make you 'look'
>> interested/popular/part-of-the-furniture ....
>
> Well, that *is* a problem. However, we are supposed to be friendly
> and nice, and not tell other developers that they have done literally
> nothing during the 2 years they're part of some project. That could
> discourage them from contributing.
OK, so here's the flipside of this. I'm a member of a few projects
because I help take care of just a couple of things or maybe even just
a gentoo-carried patch. Being a project member is necessary as I do
want to have the commit rights on the project, but I'm -not- nor ever
meant to be a general project member or overall maintainer or dev.
So does that mean I should remove myself from these projects? Or
maybe do we just need some sort of 'occasional contributor' status to
the project membership? Or should things just stay as they are?
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^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 16+ messages in thread
* Re: [gentoo-project] The problem of defunct and undermanned projects in Gentoo
2017-07-19 17:34 ` Ian Stakenvicius
@ 2017-07-19 18:22 ` Rich Freeman
2017-07-19 18:48 ` M. J. Everitt
2017-07-19 18:53 ` Mart Raudsepp
2017-07-20 2:15 ` Aaron Bauman
1 sibling, 2 replies; 16+ messages in thread
From: Rich Freeman @ 2017-07-19 18:22 UTC (permalink / raw
To: gentoo-project
On Wed, Jul 19, 2017 at 1:34 PM, Ian Stakenvicius <axs@gentoo.org> wrote:
>
> OK, so here's the flipside of this. I'm a member of a few projects
> because I help take care of just a couple of things or maybe even just
> a gentoo-carried patch. Being a project member is necessary as I do
> want to have the commit rights on the project, but I'm -not- nor ever
> meant to be a general project member or overall maintainer or dev.
>
You left out another use case - wanting to follow mail on the project
alias. I could see cases where somebody isn't interest in a project
in general but works on something related and benefits from seeing the
emails to the alias.
--
Rich
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 16+ messages in thread
* Re: [gentoo-project] The problem of defunct and undermanned projects in Gentoo
2017-07-19 18:22 ` Rich Freeman
@ 2017-07-19 18:48 ` M. J. Everitt
2017-07-19 18:53 ` Mart Raudsepp
1 sibling, 0 replies; 16+ messages in thread
From: M. J. Everitt @ 2017-07-19 18:48 UTC (permalink / raw
To: gentoo-project
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On 19/07/17 19:22, Rich Freeman wrote:
> On Wed, Jul 19, 2017 at 1:34 PM, Ian Stakenvicius <axs@gentoo.org> wrote:
>> OK, so here's the flipside of this. I'm a member of a few projects
>> because I help take care of just a couple of things or maybe even just
>> a gentoo-carried patch. Being a project member is necessary as I do
>> want to have the commit rights on the project, but I'm -not- nor ever
>> meant to be a general project member or overall maintainer or dev.
>>
> You left out another use case - wanting to follow mail on the project
> alias. I could see cases where somebody isn't interest in a project
> in general but works on something related and benefits from seeing the
> emails to the alias.
>
I would argue that's a better use for a mailing list than an alias then
.. or at least some kind of 'observer' status in a project ..
I'm not sure from my observations that being on a team alias requires
you to be a project member ..
I'm really not sure what the benefits of a closed alias are, apart from
keeping communications internal, which may be equally well-served being
in the public domain .. unless of course it really is confined to "hi,
I'm tackling bug 12345 this week, thanks,bye" type communications ...
What barriers are there for transferring some key projects to having
their own mailing lists?
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^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 16+ messages in thread
* Re: [gentoo-project] The problem of defunct and undermanned projects in Gentoo
2017-07-19 18:22 ` Rich Freeman
2017-07-19 18:48 ` M. J. Everitt
@ 2017-07-19 18:53 ` Mart Raudsepp
1 sibling, 0 replies; 16+ messages in thread
From: Mart Raudsepp @ 2017-07-19 18:53 UTC (permalink / raw
To: gentoo-project
Ühel kenal päeval, K, 19.07.2017 kell 14:22, kirjutas Rich Freeman:
> On Wed, Jul 19, 2017 at 1:34 PM, Ian Stakenvicius <axs@gentoo.org>
> wrote:
> >
> > OK, so here's the flipside of this. I'm a member of a few projects
> > because I help take care of just a couple of things or maybe even
> > just
> > a gentoo-carried patch. Being a project member is necessary as I
> > do
> > want to have the commit rights on the project, but I'm -not- nor
> > ever
> > meant to be a general project member or overall maintainer or dev.
> >
>
> You left out another use case - wanting to follow mail on the project
> alias. I could see cases where somebody isn't interest in a project
> in general but works on something related and benefits from seeing
> the
> emails to the alias.
e-mail alias members and project membership is already disconnect. So
he did not leave out this use case. To monitor a mail alias, you don't
need to be member of the project (but hopefully have an OK from the
project to lurk like this).
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 16+ messages in thread
* Re: [gentoo-project] The problem of defunct and undermanned projects in Gentoo
2017-07-19 17:34 ` Ian Stakenvicius
2017-07-19 18:22 ` Rich Freeman
@ 2017-07-20 2:15 ` Aaron Bauman
1 sibling, 0 replies; 16+ messages in thread
From: Aaron Bauman @ 2017-07-20 2:15 UTC (permalink / raw
To: gentoo-project
On Wednesday, July 19, 2017 1:34:52 PM EDT Ian Stakenvicius wrote:
> On 18/07/17 05:40 PM, Michał Górny wrote:
> > On wto, 2017-07-18 at 22:35 +0100, M. J. Everitt wrote:
> >> On 18/07/17 22:23, Kent Fredric wrote:
> >>> On Tue, 18 Jul 2017 22:12:45 +0100
> >>>
> >>> "M. J. Everitt" <m.j.everitt@iee.org> wrote:
> >>>> I think mgorny was doing some general commit stats, and I have yet to
> >>>> compile my own, but it would be very interesting to see how many
> >>>> 'active' team members there were in any given project. I suspect the
> >>>> results could be very telling ...
> >>>
> >>> Its not even like they're "inactive", they're just not active *in the
> >>> team*.
> >>>
> >>> For some, there's no reason for them to devaway:
> >>>
> >>> - They're on IRC
> >>> - They commit daily
> >>>
> >>> But they're on teams they seldom do things in.
> >>>
> >>> This is probably more true the more teams you're on.
> >>
> >> Then why are you 'in' the team.. I mean, there's one thing to idle on an
> >> IRC channel, but membership does normally imply some form of
> >> contribution, no? Or is it just to make you 'look'
> >> interested/popular/part-of-the-furniture ....
> >
> > Well, that *is* a problem. However, we are supposed to be friendly
> > and nice, and not tell other developers that they have done literally
> > nothing during the 2 years they're part of some project. That could
> > discourage them from contributing.
>
> OK, so here's the flipside of this. I'm a member of a few projects
> because I help take care of just a couple of things or maybe even just
> a gentoo-carried patch. Being a project member is necessary as I do
> want to have the commit rights on the project, but I'm -not- nor ever
> meant to be a general project member or overall maintainer or dev.
>
> So does that mean I should remove myself from these projects? Or
> maybe do we just need some sort of 'occasional contributor' status to
> the project membership? Or should things just stay as they are?
Developers receive commit rights across the tree once they pass their ebuild
quiz and are onboarded. The ability to make an "acceptable" commit is based
upon your membership to a particular project. If you do not feel you are a
"general project member" then work with the particular project you are
attempting to help. I *doubt* they will deny you the ability to commit on
their behalf. Let's not attempt to define yet another category of contribution
in order to make people feel welcome.
Work with people.
-Aaron
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 16+ messages in thread