Date: Sat, 12 Jan 2008 04:46:08 -0600 From: "Matthew D. Fuller" <fullermd@over-yonder.net> To: Matthew Seaman <m.seaman@infracaninophile.co.uk> Cc: Mark Linimon <linimon@lonesome.com>, freebsd-bugbusters@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Improving the handling of PR:s Message-ID: <20080112104608.GD87329@over-yonder.net> In-Reply-To: <47889623.3090203@infracaninophile.co.uk> References: <478556AD.6090400@bsdforen.de> <20080110003524.GB5188@soaustin.net> <200801111935.50821.peter.schuller@infidyne.com> <20080111204148.GA4787@soaustin.net> <47889623.3090203@infracaninophile.co.uk>
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On Sat, Jan 12, 2008 at 10:27:47AM +0000 I heard the voice of Matthew Seaman, and lo! it spake thus: > > As I understand it, I think the reason for this difference in > performance at resolving PRs is because there is a body of ports > committers that basically expect to spend a lot of time committing > other people's work, whereas src committers are generally focussed > on their own projects and tend to commit what they or people closely > associated with them have developed. That's certainly a good part of it, but I think there's another important contributing factor, which is the assumed responsibility. If I submit an update to my port and anything's wrong with it, of course, it's my problem. If it screws up INDEX builds or something like that, whoever committed it is probably in for some heat too. But if it works as a port just fine (which is the rough equivalent of "it compiles" in src/), and happens to just be a completely broken release of the application, *I*'m sure in for it, but nobody attaches any responsibility to the committer for it. There's no expectation that they vet all the functionality of programs submitted. It's not their job to make sure I know what I'm doing; just that my mistakes don't mess up other people's ports. I'm free to screw up mine :) In contrast, if you commit something into src/ that fails somehow, your feet are on the fire as much (or more) than the submitter's. There may be nobody that stands up and smacks you with the Shame Stick, but the general culture tends to inculcate you with an awareness that you screwed up, in a way that a ports committer commiting a "correct" update of a port submitted by the maintainer that happens to be a broken version of the application wouldn't. That has to have a disincentive effect on your willingness to put something in, especially if it's in an area of code you don't know well enough to be confident about all the side effects. And even if you could wave a magic wand and get rid of that cultural inclination, I don't think you _should_; it's a proper difference in orientation, considering the needs and properties of the two different realms. It's not really solvable because it's not exactly a "problem"; but it is a reason for the difference. -- Matthew Fuller (MF4839) | fullermd@over-yonder.net Systems/Network Administrator | http://www.over-yonder.net/~fullermd/ On the Internet, nobody can hear you scream.
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