Review Process

[Hobbsee]

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Hey all

I've been reviewing a few packages lately, so thought i'd input a bit...

Stefan Potyra wrote:

> The bottlenecks behind the current process are imo:
> 1) packages don't get reviewed often enough
> 2) packages often sit stale on revu and don't get any feedback at all
for a
> very long time
> 3) the throughput of revu is very low.

This is all very true.

Doing more REVU days would definetly help - I suspect most of the time
people forget, or deliberately ignore it, or are just working on other
things.  How many active MOTU's are there at the moment anyway?  There's
only so much that can be done, on a volunteer basis.  That being said,
some of the Australian people are on holidays at the moment.

If we could emphasise that MOTU-hopefuls can do reviews on other's
packages as well, that would definetly help.  If they're wrong, another
MOTU or hopeful can tell them.  But even if the hopeful is getting
*some* feedback, that's probably better than nothing.

> Things, that I'm really missing in revu though, and that would be a great plus 
> for the review process:
> 
> * for packages already in the archive, revu sucks. Also for merges. What would 
> be really helpful is to have a debdiff to the latest debian and/or ubuntu 
> version of the proposed upload.

+1.  This would be majorly useful.

> * orig-tarball: I always check, if the orig-tarball is in fact the same thing 
> as the upstream supplied one. That's a tedious task though, as it usually 
> involves looking around various urls.

Could we really automate this?  That would be cool.

> * autobuilding: There should be a convenient way for a reviewer to have the 
> package autobuilt. With revu-tools we have at least a basic method to do this 
> (I must admit, that I've never tested these myself), but ideally there would 
> be just a button to have it autobuilt on all ubuntu supported architectures.

This is really, really smart - i've found that some hopefuls arent even
building their packages before throwing them onto REVU.  And the MOTU's
(at least i dont) tend to try to build them until all the basic issues
are sorted out, to save time.  Even if it was built on one chosen arch,
that would help, with a link to the build-log.

> Once the package is in shape, it gets submitted to revu. There one motu will 
> give a final +1 and upload the package to universe (or reject it). Packages, 
> on which motu's work as well, could go directly into the archives, 
> circumventing revu at all (though that rule might still be debatable.)

Please dont get rid of the 2 +1 rule - various people who i've spoken
to, including myself, dont feel comfortable being the only
"knowledgable" person looking the package over and vouch for it - people
dont know everything, and will miss things.  They all have their
specialties (eg, a package involving python).

This would cause the opposite to what you want - less MOTU's that are
willing to +1, even though it looks fine to them, because they know they
might have missed things.

A few ideas of my own for REVU:

* An automatic sync of the keyring, or a button for those who have the
power on REVU to resync the keyring.  or something.  I dont have an
account, so cant really test the feasibility of that idea.

* Perhaps add a flag function, where the flag indicates "i'm ready for
this package to be reviewed".  this flag could be untoggled at will, and
would show up on the main REVU page.

* A last-commented/last modified date for the packages, on the main
page, to see how long it was since the last change.  Perhaps a
last-modified by: field, so you could see if you were the last person to
comment on it.

Lastly, a pet peeve of mine:
* Can we get a "login" section on each page of REVU?  Often we're given
links from IRC, then have to go back to the main page to login, then
back to the upload.  This is slightly painful :P

Cheers!

Sarah Hobbs.  aka Hobbsee

> What do you think?
> 
> Cheers,
>      Stefan.
> 
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