From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org ([69.77.167.62] helo=lists.gentoo.org) by finch.gentoo.org with esmtp (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1JywDp-00015B-AC for garchives@archives.gentoo.org; Wed, 21 May 2008 21:51:45 +0000 Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with SMTP id B1D2AE0464; Wed, 21 May 2008 21:51:44 +0000 (UTC) Received: from smtp.gentoo.org (smtp.gentoo.org [140.211.166.183]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 6FF83E0464 for ; Wed, 21 May 2008 21:51:44 +0000 (UTC) Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by smtp.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0F6D0677C9 for ; Wed, 21 May 2008 21:51:44 +0000 (UTC) X-Virus-Scanned: amavisd-new at gentoo.org X-Spam-Score: -1.074 X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.074 required=5.5 tests=[AWL=-0.334, BAYES_20=-0.74] Received: from smtp.gentoo.org ([127.0.0.1]) by localhost (smtp.gentoo.org [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with ESMTP id aE5vYrzNOsRO for ; Wed, 21 May 2008 21:51:37 +0000 (UTC) Received: from moutng.kundenserver.de (moutng.kundenserver.de [212.227.126.177]) by smtp.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2DB4F6502F for ; Wed, 21 May 2008 21:51:36 +0000 (UTC) Received: from sheridan.genone.homeip.net (dslb-082-083-009-135.pools.arcor-ip.net [82.83.9.135]) by mrelayeu.kundenserver.de (node=mrelayeu3) with ESMTP (Nemesis) id 0MKxQS-1Jyw8d0Io5-0007Om; Wed, 21 May 2008 23:46:23 +0200 Date: Wed, 21 May 2008 23:42:19 +0200 From: Marius Mauch To: gentoo-project@lists.gentoo.org Subject: [gentoo-project] About herds and their non-existant use Message-ID: <20080521234219.73b18796@sheridan.genone.homeip.net> Organization: Gentoo X-Mailer: Claws Mail 3.3.1 (GTK+ 2.12.9; x86_64-pc-linux-gnu) Precedence: bulk List-Post: List-Help: List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Id: Gentoo Project discussion list X-BeenThere: gentoo-project@lists.gentoo.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/signed; boundary="Sig_/tUeyKFTbQCNk8RvhsH9XVe1"; protocol="application/pgp-signature"; micalg=PGP-SHA1 X-Provags-ID: V01U2FsdGVkX185TekA3TDaAetlu5Yx76aLohV2BgjrHD5YwDB cl0T6ng2gKbOaEvv+HWggbmEHHHnZzzDlY6+oLD1iWXeTEUZHo cbULu2PffMozm5AvTcGRw== X-Archives-Salt: 7dd4758c-eba5-4dcc-9354-575741b32eac X-Archives-Hash: 14bf2ab7ecfd30fdddaac8d88ffa2991 --Sig_/tUeyKFTbQCNk8RvhsH9XVe1 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable As this topic jus came up in #-dev, and most people there seemed to agree with me I thought it might be worth to bring this topic up again. The topic is that I think that the whole 'herd' concept we're using is a huge mess and should be removed. Now before eveyone starts screaming, lets look at what this concept actually is, as many people are quite confused by it: 1) a herd is a group of packages (not a group of people) 2) the herds.xml file is used to assign people and mail aliases as maintainers of a given herd. Unfortuntely the syntax there give the impression that those people/mail aliases actually form the herd 3) the tag in metadata.xml is used to assign a package to a certain group. 4) the tag in metadata.xml can be used to assign individual maintainers for a package in addition to/instead of the herd maintainers 5) the combination of 2), 3) and 4) is used to determine the maintainers of a given package Now most people will be familiar with 5) to some degree, and that is actually the only valid use case for the herd concept that I'm aware of. Or has anyone some use case where you'd like to know what herd a package belongs to, but don't care about by whom that herd is maintained? If we can agree that this is the only real use case for the herd concept, then I think the concept is quite useless as it's just a redundant layer of indirection. You could just list mail aliases directly as maintainers, without having to consult herds.xml first. This would have a number of benefits: - you no longer have to look at herds.xml to determine the actual maintainers of a given package (as herd-name and associated mail alias don't always match) - it would simplify bug assignment rules, as the current case where a package has both a and a tag in metadata.xml no longer exists - eliminate confusion about what a herd actually is - only have one location where members of a given team are listed, currently it's possible and quite likely that herds.xml and the mail alias files get out of sync - as others said in #-dev: it makes sense ;) Now there of course are a few things to consider: - obviously, some tools, docs and processes would have to be updated, but that's always the case with changes - someone said that it might no longer be obvious if a package is maintained by an individual or a group of people. But is that really necessary? And it's not even obvious now, as some herds are maintained by a single person. - when I brought this up several months ago it was mentioned that sometimes people want to be on the mail alias of a herd, but don't want to be listed as members (and therefore be responsible). But that can likely be just implemented by some kind of blacklist in the relevant tools instead of using this whole indirection layer all the time. So, what do you think? Is there some benefit in keeping this concept, or can we live without it and make life simpler for everyone? Marius --=20 Public Key at http://www.genone.de/info/gpg-key.pub In the beginning, there was nothing. And God said, 'Let there be Light.' And there was still nothing, but you could see a bit better. --Sig_/tUeyKFTbQCNk8RvhsH9XVe1 Content-Type: application/pgp-signature; name=signature.asc Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=signature.asc -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.9 (GNU/Linux) iEYEARECAAYFAkg0lz4ACgkQWzrL1pM7SNeiUACcCFGb3DLWuD+ELDAXtfV9zE9y 5P0Anjv2co3AEP8I4wI1HZXLaEa42M6F =FvwD -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --Sig_/tUeyKFTbQCNk8RvhsH9XVe1-- -- gentoo-project@lists.gentoo.org mailing list