<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Wed, Apr 16, 2008 at 9:40 AM, Daniel Holbach <<a href="mailto:daniel.holbach@ubuntu.com">daniel.holbach@ubuntu.com</a>> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"> <div class="Ih2E3d">-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----<br> Hash: SHA1<br> <br> Cesare Tirabassi schrieb:<br> </div><div class="Ih2E3d">> Its not a question of trust, its a question that 4 eyes see better than 2. I<br> > know I don't rely on my packaging skills alone, no matter how much I work I<br> > will always miss something.<br> <br> </div>Right. That happens to upstreams, happens to uploads of existing<br> packages and happens in uploads of new packages. Whenever somebody is<br> made member of ubuntu-dev they have the chance to break packages (and<br> embarrass themselves) with every single upload.<br> <br> I guess my question is two-fold: 1) how can we improve our existing ways<br> to collaborate on packaging to be less error-prone, 2) why do we deem<br> the reviewing of new packages different than uploading for example new<br> packages versions, etc.?<br> <div class="Ih2E3d"><br> <br> >> Is the quality of packaging our main concern?<br> ><br> > Definitively.<br> <br> </div>Then what can we do to improve it? Is "I will have to ask my colleague"<br> the only way to do that?<br> <div class="Ih2E3d"><br> <br> > Very good example, and a showcase of why devs are not very keen in reviewing.<br> > First, the contributor missed even the more fundamentals of a package (other<br> > examples are native packages which are not, wrong standards, wrong<br> > distribution, etc.), so the reviewer instead of spending a whole morning<br> > reviewing the package just points out the more obvious (I would and never<br> > have done this by the way, this is a side product of having one reviewer<br> > trying to "triage" a long queue).<br> <br> </div>I picked the example to illustrate that sometimes trivialities which<br> don't really have a large impact block the upload.<br> <div class="Ih2E3d"><br> <br> > Even then the contributor waits two weeks<br> > to make a fix which just takes 5 minutes at the most. Is he really interested<br> > in packaging? If I were the reviewer I don't think I will want to spend my<br> > time in reviewing things that will eventually just get thrown out of the<br> > window.<br> <br> </div>If I submitted a package, had to wait weeks to get it reviewed, then got<br> a reply "please fix this triviality" I wasn't sure if I made it my first<br> priority to come up with a fix.<br> <div class="Ih2E3d"><br> <br> > By the way, how will lowering the required acks to one solve the above<br> > example?<br> <br> </div>If the reviewer feels empowered to make the decision right now and the<br> contributor is responsible for incoming bugs, chances are higher to<br> directly come to the beef of the packaging problems.<br> <div class="Ih2E3d"><br> <br> > Should I ack a package that I know doesn't meet the required standards? I, for<br> > one, will not want to see Universe become another automatix or deb-o-matic.<br> > The right approach here (and this is quite often used) is to say: this is<br> > wrong but I'm not blocking for this so that the contributor knows about it<br> > (and a good contributor will upload a fix shortly after).<br> <br> </div>Right, not-blocking-but-mentioning makes perfect sense.<br> <div class="Ih2E3d"><br> <br> > Having gone very recently through this, yes, it adds frustration and is as<br> > much a fault of the contributor as of the reviewer. By lowering the bar we<br> > are not doing anyone a favour, just lowering the quality of the archive.<br> <br> </div>I still believe that saying "one MOTU's decision is not enough" does not<br> fix the problem and that there are better ways to get high quality<br> packages into the archive and have responsive people fixing them as<br> problems come up.</blockquote><div><br>One of the reasons Open Source software *works* is because it employs the scientific method. That process relies heavily on peer review. I don't think we should remove that, discourage that, or ever consider it unimportant. If everyone had unlimited time and resources, I would get every single one of my packages reviewed. No, not because I don't think I'm not competent enough to make the upload myself alone but because I consider peer review the corner stone of our development model. <br> <br>Maybe the issue here isn't a philosophical one but more of a technical one? Maybe we should focus, as you suggested, on improving and innovating review infrastructure?<br> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"> <br> <div class="Ih2E3d"><br> Have a nice day,<br>  Daniel<br> <br> - --<br> </div><div class="Ih2E3d">My 5 today: #210449 (network-manager-applet), #215043, #193764<br> (evolution-scalix), #215472 (gnome-themes-extras), #205756 (gnome-<br> subtitles)<br> </div><div class="Ih2E3d">Do 5 a day - every day! <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/5-A-Day" target="_blank">https://wiki.ubuntu.com/5-A-Day</a><br> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----<br> Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux)<br> Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - <a href="http://enigmail.mozdev.org" target="_blank">http://enigmail.mozdev.org</a><br> <br> </div>iD8DBQFIBfPSRjrlnQWd1esRAsC7AJ993DNk9MgkZHsRj6NUN7qaFROXhgCfXQic<br> mLIOv2PDRll0NGBfnup+caI=<br> =/vos<br> -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----<br> <div><div></div><div class="Wj3C7c"><br> --<br> Ubuntu-motu mailing list<br> <a href="mailto:Ubuntu-motu@lists.ubuntu.com">Ubuntu-motu@lists.ubuntu.com</a><br> Modify settings or unsubscribe at: <a href="https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-motu" target="_blank">https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-motu</a><br> </div></div></blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>Cody A.W. Somerville<br>Software Engineer<br>Red Cow Marketing & Technologies, Inc.<br>Office: 506-458-1290<br>Toll Free: 1-877-733-2699<br>Fax: 506-453-9112<br> Cell: 506-449-5899<br>Email: <a href="mailto:cody@redcow.ca">cody@redcow.ca</a><br><a href="http://www.redcow.ca">http://www.redcow.ca</a>