SRUs and Notifications: Speeding up the SRU Process

[Marc Deslauriers]

On 2023-11-08 20:38, Simon Quigley wrote:
> Hello Stable Release Updates Team!
> 
> Over the course of the Ubuntu Summit, I attended a talk by Andreas regarding 
> "the perfect SRU." I was incredibly excited to attend this, so I could ask 
> clarifying questions about specific elements of the process.
> 
> I brought up an idea that Robie suggested I forward here, which is regarding 
> older SRUs. A major point in the presentation was regarding SRUs which aren't 
> verified in time. Often times, despite our best intentions, Launchpad bug 
> notifications get missed. The vast majority of the time (from what I'm hearing), 
> a simple ping is all that's needed to progress the SRU and get it ready for GA.
> 
> My suggestion is this: let's have nag emails like Britney gives out. I know what 
> you're thinking: more emails are a bad idea. Usually I would agree. That being 
> said, valid Stable Release Updates have an inherent value to the end user. These 
> are the updates which make the experience better, align actual functionality 
> with expectations in a non-intrusive way, and keep the user secure. I would 
> argue email updates around SRUs are *more* important than Britney notifications, 
> simply in the way of user impact.
> 
> *I propose that some piece of tooling [standalone, or I'm taking suggestions for 
> existing places] shall notify both the uploader/sponsor and the bug reporter via 
> email once a week until the SRU is fully verified, once accepted in -proposed.*
> 
> This will have a wider impact on the velocity of SRUs. In the short-term, this 
> means more work for the SRU team, given everyone is now reminded of their SRUs 
> (and thus, a lot will come in at once). This will eventually average out (I 
> estimate over the course of a month) to the point where we have a minimal 
> "pending SRUs" table, and higher velocity for SRUs, benefiting both our users 
> and developers.
> 
> Please let me know what your thoughts are, otherwise I will get started on some 
> code.
> 
> Thank you for your time,
> 

Big +1 from me on this. Packages that stay in -proposed due to lack of 
verification get in the way of security updates, and I either have to supersede 
them and upset whoever is trying to get a fix in, or try and get them to quickly 
verify their package.

I think reminding folks they have packages in -proposed is a good idea and will 
help alleviate this issue.

Marc.