From owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Jan 24 11:24:25 2012 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A71AA1065677 for ; Tue, 24 Jan 2012 11:24:25 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from vermaden@interia.pl) Received: from smtpo.poczta.interia.pl (smtpo.poczta.interia.pl [217.74.65.207]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id D89FB8FC08 for ; Tue, 24 Jan 2012 11:24:24 +0000 (UTC) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 12:24:22 +0100 From: vermaden To: Mark Linimon X-Mailer: interia.pl/pf09 In-Reply-To: <20120122054903.GB12469@lonesome.com> References: <20120122054903.GB12469@lonesome.com> X-Originating-IP: 194.0.181.128 Message-Id: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=interia.pl; s=biztos; t=1327404262; bh=3NsMnKfjrPoqVSw5Vx72v7MNB9J8Ql0f4sH3d3AtR5k=; h=Date:From:Subject:To:Cc:X-Mailer:In-Reply-To:References: X-Originating-IP:Message-Id:MIME-Version:Content-Type: Content-Transfer-Encoding; b=Worv4/5u0dBupqRZY5w4f7AweEtf8lbLT2o617UuQvwMYkfr08gQSWml6DES95x/7 GIY9tVLrXIeAMN0KkZcSq3dgcOQqMRvcsmISMjBAWlLlO62AjcO2Hg1u/9gtb9wxAD qmk0u34k/Pv65KpkR+acKg5SdLIsLFt4SrbqTqZs= Cc: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Subject: Re: FreeBSD has serious problems with focus, longevity, and lifecycle X-BeenThere: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Technical Discussions relating to FreeBSD List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 11:24:25 -0000 "Mark Linimon" pisze: > On Thu, Jan 19, 2012 at 08:07:43AM +0100, vermaden wrote: > > I submit PRs and try to help test them as some developer/committer > > will pick up the PR, submit a patch to test, but it was MANY times > > that the response from developer/committer was way too long that > > I even DID NOT HAVE THE HARDWARE anymore ... >=20 > I don't have a magic wand to solve this problem. I've spent a lot > of time thinking about it and it's just a hard problem to solve in > general. There are several aspects: >=20 > - so many computers are very broken (specifically, horrible BIOS > bugs). >=20 > - most committers only have one or two computers that they work with. >=20 > - most committers have their own tasklist, and "support users" is > something they never have time to get around to. >=20 > "support users" is, in general, something Open Source OSes do not > do very well (at least without a paid support staff, as is the case > in some of the Linux distros.) >=20 > But what's discouraging for the people that try to clean up the stale > PRs is that they get yelled at when they try to do so. Thus, they > tend to get demotivated as well. >=20 > Support/bug triage is hard and unrewarding work. People can tend to > feel that they're being blamed for bugs that they had nothing to do > with creating, and burn out. Hi, I do not have anything against You, or any other commiter/developer, maybe the answer to that PR should be 'I have checked that and that, but I do not have that hardware so no luck ...' It would be also great to have FreeBSD base system tool, that would collect all system data, dmesg, uname, hardware configuration, literally EVERYTHING, that would provide some useful input for a commiter/developer. It would also be good to have some wiki.freebsd.org page that would describe what information is needed to fill a good PR if such tool is not going to 'happen', I could write a simple SH script myself, that would collect dmesg/dmidecode/uname and more output from other commands, but I do not know what knowledge You need, so that simple program to get all that useful data can help a little, at least in theory. > > Here is one of the messages that I sent by then to the mailing lists: > > http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-doc/2007-May/012507.html > >=20 > > ... and NOTHING HAPPENED, no one told me what to do next, > > should I sent a SGML version or anything ... or just GTFO. >=20 > I'm sorry that nothing happened, but unfortunately that's common. > Submitters sometimes have to be persistent, and maybe even catch > new committers when they sign up. Our documentation is certainly > in need of updating. I still was (or at least felt) that was a FreeBSD newbie that time, so I did not knew if my 'handbook part' was just rubbish, or stupid, or ... whatever, no one responded, so I assumed that its not needed/useless and moved along. It would be also good to have a wiki.freebsd.org page describing what is needed and in what format a user should send the documentation changes, currently its just wasting developers' time for asking them how to do that and that, what format, where to send it ... > > What I have done about these 'Ports issues'? I contacted these > > ports maintainers and said that both RC script and AIO support for > > samba should be enabled by default by linking to several threads > > at FreeBSD Forums that the problem is known and exists ... and I > > did not get ANY RESPONSE till this very day, not even a GTFO > > (which would probably be better then nothing). >=20 > When you don't get a response from a maintainer, your best bet is to > file a PR against the port. If the maintainer doesn't respond, then > after 2 weeks any FreeBSD ports committer is free to work on the PR > and, if they agree with you, commit it via maintainer-timeout. >=20 > We don't have a way to track emails that various users send to individual > maintainers. With a PR open, we have a way to do that. We also track > maintainer-timeouts, and these can eventually lead to a maintainer reset. I have now filled these PR's here: http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/query-pr.cgi?pr=3D164431 http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/query-pr.cgi?pr=3D164432 > > It's not that people does not try to help, a lot tried (and I am still > > trying), but its VERY unpleasant to have awareness, that you dedicated > > your time, tried to help as much as possible, made some steps to achiev= e > > that ... and no one even cares about that. >=20 > I think it's not "don't care", I think it's that "unable to cope with > number of incoming PRs and other requests for changes and support". > As I type this, there are 1122 ports PRs (6272 total PRs). On most > days, around 40 come in. It would take a few dozen more volunteers > to be able to keep up with them all. >=20 > mcl So its time for another article/page on wiki.freebsd.org, how to become a commiter and help to solve PRs', how to add your mirror to FreeBSD project, etc, etc ... Regards and have a nice day, vermaden ...