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 1Jyxup-0002P4-4w for garchives@archives.gentoo.org; Wed, 21 May 2008 23:40:15 +0000 Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 906F0E041A; Wed, 21 May 2008 23:40:14 +0000 (UTC) Received: from moutng.kundenserver.de (moutng.kundenserver.de [212.227.126.186]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4EA69E041A for ; Wed, 21 May 2008 23:40:14 +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=mrelayeu8) with ESMTP (Nemesis) id 0ML31I-1Jyxun2v4b-00016v; Thu, 22 May 2008 01:40:13 +0200 Date: Thu, 22 May 2008 01:36:03 +0200 From: Marius Mauch To: gentoo-dev@gentoo.org Cc: gentoo-project@lists.gentoo.org Subject: Re: [gentoo-project] About herds and their non-existant use Message-ID: <20080522013603.0e4bf658@sheridan.genone.homeip.net> In-Reply-To: <20080521234219.73b18796@sheridan.genone.homeip.net> References: <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_/LQYLzIS2JApi.uOSz8Gsuhr"; protocol="application/pgp-signature"; micalg=PGP-SHA1 X-Provags-ID: V01U2FsdGVkX18gqsf2LX6PTctML9lVZJzh32ObXV9CBAfA9So baMI2Uf3hjqUq8wPbg9I5PS2lGWm2nQxQFRWDpjkLCra3Cz9Ab Hlxh4EtfnPcK9VH3/JV/g== X-Archives-Salt: 49406ee8-eb94-482b-afa9-c40f12252fdb X-Archives-Hash: a43d258bdaf7d82f3cd827a93c60f62c --Sig_/LQYLzIS2JApi.uOSz8Gsuhr Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Moving the discussion to -dev per leios request. On Wed, 21 May 2008 23:42:19 +0200 Marius Mauch wrote: > 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: >=20 > 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 >=20 > 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. >=20 > 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 ;) >=20 > 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. >=20 > 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? >=20 > Marius >=20 > --=20 > Public Key at http://www.genone.de/info/gpg-key.pub >=20 > 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. --=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_/LQYLzIS2JApi.uOSz8Gsuhr Content-Type: application/pgp-signature; name=signature.asc Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=signature.asc -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.9 (GNU/Linux) iEUEARECAAYFAkg0secACgkQWzrL1pM7SNeCwACfSIbvzkGLfB19Ng9U/fb1ybdP 5ycAmPv+W9G/VelNMPdLL0dQUq9sFf4= =k8HD -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --Sig_/LQYLzIS2JApi.uOSz8Gsuhr-- -- gentoo-project@lists.gentoo.org mailing list