View of non maintained packages

[Jochen Küpper]

On 14.01.2008, at 08:57, Ryan Schmidt wrote:
>
> On Jan 13, 2008, at 17:37, Rolf Würdemann wrote:
>
>> Am 14.01.2008 um 00:21 schrieb Rainer Müller:
>>
>>> Rolf Würdemann wrote:
>>>
>>>> But it seems that we need more committers before asking on
>>>> the website - if we get mainatiners for a quarter of the ports
>>>> there will be much work (if my case with the one to three weeks
>>>> was not a single case) ;)
>>>
>>> Maybe we should have someone who is responsible for committing  
>>> updates
>>> for particular port categories. I think the problem at the moment is
>>> that a port update is committed if someone looked into Trac to see  
>>> any
>>> pending updates... So this is rather random when a port update is  
>>> committed.
>>

> Do you mean a group of people who do nothing but commit things that  
> others submit? If we have people who are interested in performing  
> that function, then sure.
>
> But we don't want everything that's submitted into Trac just blindly  
> committed into Subversion. We need the committer to be aware of the  
> changes that are being made, to police the changes in a way. Don't  
> commit patches that do multiple things; break it into separate  
> patches or ask the contributor to do so. Don't commit patches that  
> make whitespace changes to the entire portfile in addition to  
> functional changes. Don't commit patches that obviously revert a  
> previous revision without the contributor explaining why. Don't  
> commit patches that use inadvisable practices without first  
> discussing these with the contributor. And so forth. In order to  
> know these things, it helps if such a committer is also an  
> accomplished port maintainer/author.
>
> I think what we need are committers who are interested in each  
> category of software. I occasionally look through the unassigned  
> tickets and either try to handle them (new ports, or patches for  
> unmaintained ports) or assign them to their ports' maintainers. But  
> some tickets I don't deal with, like most tickets for Python modules  
> or most Gnome tickets, because I don't use or sufficiently  
> understand Python and Gnome. We need committers who are interested  
> in and proficient in Python and Gnome (and maybe some other  
> categories) who will deal with those tickets.

I think this is the way to go.

What do we need?

First, we need people to volunteer for group-committers on all groups!  
Of course individuals can decide themselves whether they cannot  
perform this task at all or perform it on one or multiple port groups.  
As Ryan said: he can do it on some (practically does it on several)  
but not on others...

Second, we need to "announce" these port-group committers, i.e., on  
the MacPorts Wiki. Preferably the committers of a single group are  
placed on a <group>-commit-pending@ mailing list...

Third, some means to assign a committed patch to one or, if  
appropriate, multiple port groups. Optimally, this would be automatic  
based on the Portfile. Then the <group>-commit-pending@ is  
automatically emailed. Obviously, a poor mans version would to request  
the  ticket creator to add the correct <group>-commit-pending@ to the  
cc: field (good enough for a test of the whole system).

Fourth, the people behind <group>-commit-pending@ need the time to  
look at these tickets on a (nearly) daily basis...
 From my perspective this is te hardest point!


Fifth: we need more volunteers!
a) more maintainers
b) more people with commit-rights
c) group-committers
...


Greetings,
Jochen
-- 
Einigkeit und Recht und Freiheit                http://www.Jochen-Kuepper.de
     Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité                GnuPG key: CC1B0B4D
         Sex, drugs and rock-n-roll


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