Date: Sat, 16 Sep 2000 21:36:37 -0400 From: Garance A Drosihn <drosih@rpi.edu> To: Kris Kennaway <kris@FreeBSD.ORG>, freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: I'll be rolling a 4.1.1 release on September 25th Message-ID: <v04210101b5e9c96fb10c@[128.113.24.47]> In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.4.21.0009161735400.61017-100000@freefall.freebsd.org> References: <Pine.BSF.4.21.0009161735400.61017-100000@freefall.freebsd.org>
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At 5:39 PM -0700 9/16/00, Kris Kennaway wrote: >On Sat, 16 Sep 2000, Peter Radcliffe wrote: > > Can we _please_ get these two patches into at least -stable before > > or after this release cut ? > >Poeple often pop up right before a release is due to be rolled, and >ask for some patch to "make it into the release" - often it doesn't, >and they go away until the next release is announced. This isn't how >the FreeBSD development model works, and you're targetting the wrong >group at the wrong time. You need to get your patch applied to > *FreeBSD-CURRENT* preferably a month or more before the release, and >then get it merged back to -stable. You left out the exact steps on how someone who does not have commit privs is supposed to "get their patch applied". I, for one, have found that process frustrating. Someone writes a PR, including a patch, and often the PR just sits there. It is up to the same person to find some committer, and pursue that person until they have time to apply the update. The most obvious person for a given piece may be swamped at the time, at which point the patch-writer has to go around hounding other people. Those other people, in turn, will feel uncomfortable because they're not familiar with that area of code -- and besides, they're already busy with other code that they already know. The patch-writer tries writing messages to public mailing lists. They try to be polite. They try do stir up some interest. They hope that someone somewhere will pick up the patch and apply it. After spending ten times more effort trying to get someone to apply the patch than was originally spent MAKING the patch, they give up. A release is announced. They get a bit excited, and hope once again to get someone interested. They are then told that they are "not following the FreeBSD development model". As near as I can tell, the "freebsd development model" is that either you yourself are a committer, or that you pray to the deity of your choice that a miracle happens. Given that it is clear that writing a PR is insufficient to getting a patch applied to current, I suggest that the reply to any PR which includes a patch should also detail what the remaining steps are. Who *is* someone supposed to bug? What *are* they supposed to do when the "obvious someone" honestly is too busy to look at their PR? If this is "the wrong group" at "the wrong time", then what is the RIGHT group, and at exactly WHAT time will that group not be frantically busy with other work to do? So, let me add a disclaimer here. I realize the committers are busy. Fine. But don't just dismiss someone who sent in the PR as if they weren't following some obvious set of rules, and thus it is their own fault that it takes years to get a reply to a PR. The PR's aren't answered because there's still more work to do than there are people to do it. Period. Do not kid yourself, and insult the rest of us, by claiming that if we just wrote one more message to "the right place", then PR's which include patches might actually be looked at. If someone is not a committer, then they have no real way to "force" any patch to be applied. So, do not blame *them* when PR's are left to languish in the PR database. --- Garance Alistair Drosehn = gad@eclipse.acs.rpi.edu Senior Systems Programmer or drosih@rpi.edu Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message
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