Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2012 08:11:54 -0500 From: Eitan Adler <lists@eitanadler.com> To: Igor Mozolevsky <igor@hybrid-lab.co.uk> Cc: Ian Lepore <freebsd@damnhippie.dyndns.org>, Andriy Gapon <avg@freebsd.org>, freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Subject: Re: FreeBSD has serious problems with focus, longevity, and lifecycle Message-ID: <CAF6rxgmyxwKAnuMFzU0nfP3gt7-shhL186UydgQ8TZKviPMOAg@mail.gmail.com> In-Reply-To: <CADWvR2iK2dTXda9dpPRDHt8tKQz720oQJLLnBmmDWu1nFvGoiA@mail.gmail.com> References: <alpine.BSF.2.00.1112211415580.19710@kozubik.com> <op.v78i3yxi34t2sn@tech304> <4F15C44F.1030208@freebsd.org> <1326836797.1669.234.camel@revolution.hippie.lan> <4F16019F.2060300@FreeBSD.org> <1326843399.1669.249.camel@revolution.hippie.lan> <4F160B99.1060001@FreeBSD.org> <CADWvR2jdeu6R%2BmX1n2Uz1WUBcZ=BKWSDB4nR-rEv_P4jAZg3HQ@mail.gmail.com> <CAF6rxgkvucnpjQOrL70TBqsitttQDPhqfxOr%2BB7QWmSe8JfL2Q@mail.gmail.com> <CADWvR2iK2dTXda9dpPRDHt8tKQz720oQJLLnBmmDWu1nFvGoiA@mail.gmail.com>
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On Tue, Jan 17, 2012 at 8:41 PM, Igor Mozolevsky <igor@hybrid-lab.co.uk> wr= ote: > On 18 January 2012 01:11, Eitan Adler <lists@eitanadler.com> wrote: > >> It takes time to review and test patches. There are a lot of people >> that think "it only takes 30 seconds to download the patch, apply, and >> commit." =C2=A0This is just not true. > > I fully understand that and it is not what I was saying, what I was > saying was about the patches that were being plainly ignored/allowed > to go stale. What you said below is perfectly reasonable once a > committer is actively involved in dealing with a patch, then I, and > anyone else for that matter, would be very reasonably expected to be > involved in the process and understands that someone else is working > on the issue you've address. Often times people don't do this part and submit a "drive by patch." Nothing is wrong with that, but it does make it harder to verify that a fix is correct (especially for hardware support PRs). > The problem, however, lies in the time > between a patch is submitted and is "picked up", if the latter ever > occurs!.. That is where the discouragement occurs. I guess I didn't follow through on all the above. My point was that who wants to spend 3, 4, 7, 10 hours fixing a bug report when they can be working on a shiny new feature (or play games, or anything else but work!)? > I hope I've address what you say here just above :-) and > wholeheartedly agree with everything else you've said, but you are > addressing the problem from a different angle: nobody is ever going to > disagree that _once_ someone has picked up a patch it will take them > time to get it through whatever steps necessary. As I said above, the time it takes to follow through on a PR discourages people from even looking. > But, as I said above, > it's getting to *this* stage that is the lengthy and a disheartening > process... I agree that this is a real problem. Unfortunately I can't think of any good solutions. The bugbusting team maintains a list of "easy" and "quality" PRs which we try to get committers to look at. I also maintain a personal "bugging list" (pun intended) of PRs which I bug other people about. This has helped somewhat (the PRs I bug people about tend to get closed) but it isn't sufficient. >> If you have ideas to make this process easier or more efficient we are >> all eager to hear them. I am especially interested to know what *I* >> could do to help speed things along in areas I don't know well enough >> to commit to. > > The problem, which I suspect is very difficult to overcome in what I > call the "bazaar" environment, is the enforcement. Solving this and other problems is so hard a back has been written on the topic: http://producingoss.com/ > One way to > "encourage" people to fix their code would be to prevent them from > committing to -CURRENT once they pass a certain threshold of > "unattended" patches. Of course then, committers will be whinging that > they'd be resigning if they can't commit to -CURRENT, but quite > frankly, why should anyone have the commit privilege if they can't be > bothered to address the bugs, are those people just using the FreeBSD > project to boost their CV (with great powers comes great > responsibility!)? Wouldn't this discourage even more people from helping? --=20 Eitan Adler
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