I hope nobody really minds me being in a bad mood....

On Fri, Mar 14, 2003 at 03:09:36PM -0500, John Hawkinson wrote:
> It's certainly the case that implementing solutions for problems
> addressed in PRs is useful.
> 
> Of course, it's necessary that solutions be reasonable and acceptable.
> 
> So if the solution to a PR is noncontroversial, implement the solution
> and email the diffs to the PR. Then "find someone to commit it," which
                                 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Tricky bit ---->

> should be straightforward, especially in the light of PRs with owners,
> even if those owners are things like "bin-bug-people@netbsd.org."
> 
> In the absence of a clear owner, a query can be directed to the
> appropriate tech- list.

Let me get this straight: we find a bug, write a patch, send the PR
with the patch, and then go hunting down someone to commit the fix?

Huh? What's the point of a tracking system where items have owners
if the submitter still has to go looking for people interested enough
to bother looking at it?

Doesn't the tracking system send out emails to people letting them know
about (still) open issues? Why is that not enough?

You know, I'm well aware that NetBSD is a volunteer project. But there
are two groups of volunteers: Those with commit access and those without.
I'm in the "without" category, which is fine with me, and I haven't 
asked to be given access. I'm perfectly happy to _volunteer_ fixes
but I really hate it when gnats ends up being my personal backup system
where I put patches to avoid losing them. 

If I submit something I'd like a little feedback in a reasonable
amount of time, where reasonable can be as large as a month, or even
"after the next release makes it out the door". If I submit something
that sucks, tell me! If I submit something and nobody has time right
now, tell me! I don't want to sit here wondering if my patches are
being ignored for technical reasons, other good reasons, or just
because someone doesn't like me. "Yo, what up?"

I've been running NetBSD since 1.0-Beta. I promote NetBSD whenever I
reasonably can with whoever happens to be around me. I've got the
promotional materials from the Wasabi 1.5 disk on the door to my office
at work.  I must say it doesn't reflect very well on the Project when
friends of mine get motivated enough to contribute patches and then have
the patches get ignored. Why am I trying to get people to volunteer when
their contributions are just going to be ignored?

I hear 1.6.1 is about to come out. I really hate having to go through an
ordeal when I upgrade because silly non-controversial patches are rotting
in gnats.

And I really really dislike the fact that there is no appeals system.  I
submitted a documentation correction. One person committed it, another
decided (incorrectly IMHO) it was "wrong" and backed it out. Now what?
The PR sits in gnats until we all grow old and die?

Perhaps NetBSD needs some sort of a system where a PR can be escalated
to a level where a set of people vote on it. The voting group could
be larger than the group of committers possibly. 

Oh, and while I'm ranting, let me mention this: If I mention on a list
that such-and-such feature could be better, the LAST thing I want to
hear is "well, why don't you volunteer!" Don't even bother suggesting
to me that I should volunteer for something when I have volunteered
fixes and features that are rotting in gnats. "C'mon."

I *want* NetBSD to do well. I *want* to see more people working
on NetBSD. I *want* to help out. Don't take this email as an attack
because I *want* to be on NetBSD's side. As the saying goes, "Help
me help you!"
-- 
Kevin P. Neal                                http://www.pobox.com/~kpn/
"Oh, I've heard that paradox a couple of times, but there's something
about a cat dying and I hate to think of such things."
  - Dr. Donald Knuth speaking of Schrodinger's cat, December 8, 1999, MIT