Re: Minutes x2 for release team 2002-10-30 and 2002-11-06

[Thomas Vander Stichele <thomas urgent rug ac be>]

Hi,

> Which is exactly why I made the original request: let's have a few
> people around the timezones who build regularly. If one of those is Dan
> with access to the tinderbox logs, great. Leading up to 2.0, I would
> have been building at least once per day. I can't have been the only
> one.
> 
> This started out as a simple request to solve a problem that really
> happened. If it's such a big deal to people to solve in a simple fashion
> then just forget it. :(

I agree with and stand by your opinion.  It is important to have as much 
of a working build as possible for various reasons.

I really also don't see the problem we as a community might have with 
having a few "appointed" people doing ONLY build fixes without asking.

Consider these arguments :
- a broken build is bad in any case, anything done to minimize broken
  builds is an improvement
- a build is only allowed to be fixed without maintainer permisssion
  when it actually is broken.  This is pretty clear-cut in my eyes.
- If you are a maintainer and had bad experiences with people committing
  stuff to your module in the past, then remember :
  - having only a few people with this "permission" will actually lessen
    the chance of people stepping in and messing with your module
  - if you are true to your word and you say you can keep it buildable
    all the time at any time, you won't even have to worry about this
    anyway since because of the previous rule no one is allowed to
    touch your module since the build is never broken ;) At least, that's
    what you say - so it can't be a problem to allow the "community"
    to fix brokenness in general.
- Any build fix going in to repair a broken build is almost by definition
  small and easy to revert.  This can go from very small tweaks
  to Makefile's or configure's to a total revert of the patch that caused
  the breakage.  After this fix, it is very easy and very smart to discuss
  the revert, the original commit that broke stuff, and whatever else 
  needs discussing between the reverter, the original committer, and
  whatever interested parties there are.
- If the build is broken because of a commit to your module, chances are
  high that you didn't test your commit enough.  We all are guilty of
  that, and there's nothing wrong with that, mistakes can happen.
  But if they do happen, they ought to be corrected, and by making
  the mistake in the first place, you kind of forfeit (IMO) your right
  to complain about somebody else fixing your mistake.  The person
  fixing your mistake is not pointing his finger at you, he's just trying
  to do the right thing *for the community*.

If people have any fears or doubts regarding the idea of having build 
sheriffs, then do please share them.

But if the point against having people like this is more of an ego thing,
ie an "I know best how to maintain my own module, and don't trust other
people", then something is wrong.  This is just another application of
other guidelines set forth in Gnome 2.  Just like we all try to stick to 
the HIG because it makes sense to be consistent and because it is good
for the project as a whole.

If we as a community cannot interact with each other and have a mentality 
of fixing things first for everyone then discussing the fix to the mistake 
as reasonable human beings we're obviously doing something wrong ;)

Just MO of course - 
Thomas


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