ArchiveReorganisation and sponsoring

Colin Watson cjwatson at ubuntu.com
Mon Sep 1 00:06:59 BST 2008


On Sun, Aug 31, 2008 at 11:31:01PM +0100, Philip Wyett wrote:
> main should really be a special case and treated with a high priority
> with regarding updates and patches to bugs to enable as fast as possible
> processing.

Each segment of the archive should have its own sponsorship
arrangements, although for simplicity I expect that they would often be
cognate. For example (following the proposed reorganisation), the core
segment would have something similar to ubuntu-main-sponsors.

While it is certainly important that contributions to core packages be
examined without undue delay, I don't think there's any need to
special-case it or to treat it with special priority any more than we
already do. The reason for this is that the people involved in
sponsoring such contributions are already core developers who probably,
on average, care about packages in the core system more than they do
about other packages. As long as there are enough core developers
involved in sponsorship in general and spending enough time on
sponsorship in general, this problem is self-correcting.

> As I see it simply :-)
> 
> * Bug reported
> * Bug goes through normal info asks, answers and confirmation etc.
> 
> Once a patch is offered up...
> 
> * The bug is pushed to a status of 'Fix proposed'.

Compare with the current workflow in Launchpad for merge reviews of
Bazaar branches.

  https://launchpad.net/+tour/code-review

(To stave off expected objections, I expect it will be some time before
we're using Launchpad/Bazaar merge reviews for code review at all, and
I'd be very surprised if it were ever *required* - or even if such
reviews were prioritised over other ones - because many valuable
contributions from outside the Ubuntu development community will
continue to arrive as ordinary patches.)

> The fixed proposed state:
> 
>   * Bug is locked from any further editing.

Unnecessary and probably counterproductive. Discussion is good.

>   * Notification sent to an arm of the release team (email 'note1') plus
>     all other subscribers of new state.

Sponsorship team for the affected segment of the archive (current
ubuntu-main-sponsors or ubuntu-universe-sponsors) rather than anything
to do with the release team. The small and contended release team should
only be involved if a freeze exception is needed.

>     If accepted as good, will be pushed into -proposed upload process
>     and appropriate LP state set.

-proposed and -updates are only relevant for stable updates. The
majority of sponsorship (as, indeed, the majority of all development
work) takes place on the development release.

Cheers,

-- 
Colin Watson                                       [cjwatson at ubuntu.com]



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