[evolution-patches] Hidden agendas and Soft Targets [Was: Re: Warning fixes]

[Harish Krishnaswamy <kharish novell com>]

On Tue, 2006-10-17 at 11:54 -0400, Pavel Roskin wrote:

> I'm not planning to do any more work on Evolution.  As far as I know, my
> patches haven't been accepted.  Perhaps my karma is not positive enough.
> In this case, you should probably do everything from scratch, since my
> patch is not likely to overlap with anything.


Hi Pavel,

It is indeed sad you are not going to do any more work on Evolution. But
is it true that your patches have not been accepted ?

I just grepped the archives for your posts and found this :

Evolution Hackers :

1.
http://mail.gnome.org/archives/evolution-hackers/2006-August/msg00049.html
Posted : Sun Aug 13 07:51:24 GMT 2006
Response : Wed, 16 Aug 2006 11:45:00 +0530 

2.
http://mail.gnome.org/archives/evolution-hackers/2006-August/msg00057.html
Posted : Mon Aug 14 23:58:11 GMT 2006
Response : Thu, 17 Aug 2006 11:02:55 +0530

3.
http://mail.gnome.org/archives/evolution-hackers/2006-August/msg00058.html
Posted : Mon, 14 Aug 2006 19:58:12 -0400
Response : Wed, 16 Aug 2006 22:13:02 +0800

4.
http://mail.gnome.org/archives/evolution-hackers/2006-August/msg00059.html
Posted : Mon, 14 Aug 2006 19:58:14 -0400
Response : Tue, 15 Aug 2006 08:50:57 +0000

Posts Vs Commits Ratio - 1 : 1.  Response time - < 2 days.

Evolution Patches :
1.
http://mail.gnome.org/archives/evolution-patches/2006-September/msg00007.html

Posted : Thu Sep 21 06:04:53 GMT 2006
Response : Thu, 21 Sep 2006 08:33:33 -0400  

This was from Matthew Barnes suggesting one change he would prefer on
the patch. 
No follow-ups on the patch.  And this has not been committed yet.

On all fairness, I am presenting the other side of the coin.


Kjartan Maraas replied on the same thread citing poor response to his
patches and was guided to post the same on bugzilla, where much of
evo-patches action takes place in recent times. He posted the patches on
http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=332101 . I reviewed some of
the patches and had them committed  ahead of a release. ( Kjartan has
been a steady contributor of the warning fixes and once in the past, we
ran into some issues on a different architecture with respect to one of
his patches that I had approved. This time around, I wanted to test it
more carefully before approving/giving my review comments...so deferred
the rest until after the release).

The current team is not close to perfection in terms of responding to
the patches quickly but 
some of us at least try to do our best given the paucity of resources in
the team given the sheer number of issues we focus on.


I would like to cite the examples of Matthew Barnes, Hiroyuki Ikezoe,
Kjartan, Jules Colding  who have been excellent contributors to the
project and who I always wished, I and the team could work more closely
with and respond faster.  I thank them for their patience and
contributions and do my best to get their patches in before the tarballs
are out. ( Evolution 2.9.1 rolled out barely hours before the deadline,
almost 3 am at my end - only to ensure that it includes Matthew's
excellent EMsg patch, an ABI break that held the patch in limbo during
the last month).

I do wish we hit a Zero Unreviewed Patches Count but in real world, I
just to manage to ensure we do not let an important useful patch go
unreviewed. When bugzilla or e-p does not get addressed by the module
hackers, a friendly poke or a pop-up radar usually gets it covered - as
Andre/Matthew Barnes would know.

Pavel : We welcome your contributions - We need you guys - but a
friendly nudge can help get things moving more than a mail like yours -
I understand what you must be feeling but please do take a look at
Bugzilla/CVS sources/your own mailbox to actually look for some evidence
before making any sweeping generalizations that the team ignores patches
or does not respect contributions. Such mails shape a lot of incorrect
perceptions and expectations that I believe are not your intentions but
these are real consequences to the team and potential contributors
nevertheless.


And p-l-e-a-s-e do not let yourself be (mis)used to run somebody else's
agenda.


Philip :  I had vowed not to reply on the 'Split Camel out of EDS' rant
anymore - but I will talk about it once now to set some facts clear.

I appreciate your concerns on "Novell's staffing problems"  and what
Novell should do - but IIRC, we last agreed together that  a branch
would be created for the Camel work based on mmap and you could use the
Evolution Two Ten Planning page to discuss and invite contributions to
that.

The mmapped-camel-summary branch *was* created,  Jeff and Varadhan had
been discussing the pros/cons and further work ahead with you - but I do
not see a single patch on the branch yet.  All of us get to see only
your blog posts,  unrelated issues hijacked into the 'Split Camel'
slogan.  Just spend a few minutes updating the TwoTen planning page on
go-evolution.org and getting some hackers interested rather than
dictating strategy and making attacks on the project.

Shreyas :  Thanks for voicing your support. Also, let me clarify that
non-Novell maintainers reviewing/approving patches has been in-place for
years even while you were on board with us.  Harry Liu's team from Sun
have been the de-facto maintainers on the accessibility modules,  Gicmo
on CalDAV modules. Andre has been approving i18n/Documentation related
patches for more than a release now.

If anyone is interested in shouldering responsibilities, you are
welcome.  Just start reviewing patches and build your contributions.  I
would like to cite Matthew Barnes again who has been reviewing patches
on the list, here.  This is Open Source and your contributions speak for
yourself. 

Regards,
Harish