Blocking on user switching: redux

[Adam Williamson]

Hi folks!

So, during Fedora 32 Final blocker review, a bug relating to "user
switching" came up for review:

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1817708

I dug into the question of whether we have tended to consider the "log
in / log out / shut down / reboot" criterion as covering user
switching, and found that this issue is actually kinda outstanding and
unresolved for a long time.

Back in January 2015, we kinda provisionally decided that we *did* want
to block on user switching bugs, by accepting this one as a blocker
during a review meeting:

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1184933

kparal was detailed to propose clearly adding it to the criteria, and
he duly drafted up a change and mailed it to the relevant lists -
test@, kde@ and desktop@:

https://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2015-January/124811.html
https://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/kde/2015-January/014175.html
https://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/desktop/2015-January/011558.html

However, here things foundered a bit because there was some opposition
to the idea. The discussion is spread across the three lists, but my
reading is broadly that there were distinct camps in favour of and
against blocking on user switching bugs. Prominent "pro-blocking" folks
were Michael Catanzaro and Kevin Kofler. Prominent "anti-blocking"
folks were Matthias Clasen, Rex Dieter and Josh Boyer. Obviously that's
a particularly awkward split because we have pro- and anti- folks on
both the desktop and KDE teams.

The discussion was pretty active, but in the end it sort of petered out
without any definite conclusion being reached. The draft changes Kamil
proposed were never made, and the criterion remained as it was before.

For the purposes of our specific F32 blocker proposal we decided to
adopt the principle that, since there was a discussion that clearly did
not reach a consensus that user switching *should* be release-blocking, 
we could not really treat it as such, and thus we rejected the bug as a
blocker. But I figured it would probably be a good idea to bring the
topic up again and try to come to a definite conclusion this time.

So, once again: do we think it makes sense to consider desktop user
switching - that is, switching between multiple active desktop sessions
for different users, without logging out and in - as release-blocking?
Has anyone who was active in the previous discussion changed their mind
on this?

I suppose one question that could potentially arise is whether we could
treat it as release-blocking for GNOME but not for KDE, or vice versa.
In general I think it's a good goal to try and keep our standards
similar across our release-blocking desktops, but I do think we could
at least consider that, if the discussion seemed to be going in that
direction.
-- 
Adam Williamson
Fedora QA Community Monkey
IRC: adamw | Twitter: AdamW_Fedora | XMPP: adamw AT happyassassin . net
http://www.happyassassin.net

[Michael Catanzaro]

On Tue, Apr 14, 2020 at 11:13 am, Adam Williamson 
<adamwill(a)fedoraproject.org&gt; wrote:
>  So, once again: do we think it makes sense to consider desktop user
>  switching - that is, switching between multiple active desktop 
>  sessions
>  for different users, without logging out and in - as release-blocking?
>  Has anyone who was active in the previous discussion changed their 
>  mind
>  on this? 
In the past five years, quality has generally gone up across the entire 
desktop, and Fedora's reputation has benefited accordingly. Maybe we 
had bigger issues to deal with back in 2015 and focusing efforts on 
single-user systems was a reasonable decision when deciding which bugs 
we'd have to live with and which we had time to fix. Nowadays, user 
switching has been working well for a long time, so we should probably 
not break it. My opinion hasn't changed: user switching is basic 
desktop functionality and ought to continue to work reliably for most 
users; even if we optimize for single-user systems, we don't want 
multi-user to be busted to such a degree that it brings down our 
reputation for quality. (Of course, as in any blocker decision, human 
judgment should override. If there are bugs in obscure corner cases, of 
course obscure corner cases should not be blockers.)

[Matthew Miller]

On Tue, Apr 14, 2020 at 01:42:12PM -0500, Michael Catanzaro wrote:
>  so we should probably not break it. My opinion hasn't changed:
> user
>  switching is basic desktop functionality and ought to continue to
>  work reliably for most users; even if we optimize for single-user
>  systems, we don't want multi-user to be busted to such a degree that
>  it brings down our reputation for quality. (Of course, as in any 
For what it's worth, I share this opinion. I may be biased, though, because
I use this functionality a lot and probably do not represent the typical
user.

-- 
Matthew Miller
<mattdm(a)fedoraproject.org&gt;
Fedora Project Leader
Not the Pope

[Lukas Ruzicka]

I believe that user switching should work well on all blocking desktops.
Reasoning: One of the strengths of Linux is that it is a real multiuser
system that can operate more users simultaneously. Although Windows and Mac
made their effort to explain how important it is that every user has their
own equipment and that nobody ever needs to share a device, I think that
there are situations when having this possibility comes really handy. I
also believe that if Fedora users decide to use this functionality, it
should work and cause no trouble at all.

On Tue, Apr 14, 2020 at 10:16 PM Matthew Miller <mattdm(a)fedoraproject.org&gt;
wrote:

>  On Tue, Apr 14, 2020 at 01:42:12PM -0500, Michael Catanzaro wrote:
>  > so we should probably not break it. My opinion hasn't changed: user
>  > switching is basic desktop functionality and ought to continue to
>  > work reliably for most users; even if we optimize for single-user
>  > systems, we don't want multi-user to be busted to such a degree that
>  > it brings down our reputation for quality. (Of course, as in any
>
>  For what it's worth, I share this opinion. I may be biased, though, because
>  I use this functionality a lot and probably do not represent the typical
>  user.
>
>  --
>  Matthew Miller
>  <mattdm(a)fedoraproject.org&gt;
>  Fedora Project Leader
>  Not the Pope
>  _______________________________________________
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>  

-- 

Lukáš Růžička

FEDORA QE, RHCE

Red Hat

<https://www.redhat.com>

Purkyňova 115

612 45 Brno - Královo Pole

lruzicka(a)redhat.com
TRIED AND PERSONALLY TESTED, ERGO TRUSTED. <https://redhat.com/trusted>

[Kamil Paral]

On Tue, Apr 14, 2020 at 8:14 PM Adam Williamson <adamwill(a)fedoraproject.org&gt;
wrote:

>  Hi folks!
>
>  So, during Fedora 32 Final blocker review, a bug relating to "user
>  switching" came up for review:
>
>  https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1817708
>
>  I dug into the question of whether we have tended to consider the "log
>  in / log out / shut down / reboot" criterion as covering user
>  switching, and found that this issue is actually kinda outstanding and
>  unresolved for a long time.
>
>  Back in January 2015, we kinda provisionally decided that we *did* want
>  to block on user switching bugs, by accepting this one as a blocker
>  during a review meeting:
>
>  https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1184933
>
>  kparal was detailed to propose clearly adding it to the criteria, and
>  he duly drafted up a change and mailed it to the relevant lists -
>  test@, kde@ and desktop@:
>
>  https://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2015-January/124811.html
>  https://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/kde/2015-January/014175.html
>  https://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/desktop/2015-January/011558.html
>
>  However, here things foundered a bit because there was some opposition
>  to the idea. The discussion is spread across the three lists, but my
>  reading is broadly that there were distinct camps in favour of and
>  against blocking on user switching bugs. Prominent "pro-blocking" folks
>  were Michael Catanzaro and Kevin Kofler. Prominent "anti-blocking"
>  folks were Matthias Clasen, Rex Dieter and Josh Boyer. Obviously that's
>  a particularly awkward split because we have pro- and anti- folks on
>  both the desktop and KDE teams.
>
>  The discussion was pretty active, but in the end it sort of petered out
>  without any definite conclusion being reached. The draft changes Kamil
>  proposed were never made, and the criterion remained as it was before.
>
>  For the purposes of our specific F32 blocker proposal we decided to
>  adopt the principle that, since there was a discussion that clearly did
>  not reach a consensus that user switching *should* be release-blocking,
>  we could not really treat it as such, and thus we rejected the bug as a
>  blocker. But I figured it would probably be a good idea to bring the
>  topic up again and try to come to a definite conclusion this time.
>
>  So, once again: do we think it makes sense to consider desktop user
>  switching - that is, switching between multiple active desktop sessions
>  for different users, without logging out and in - as release-blocking?
>  Has anyone who was active in the previous discussion changed their mind
>  on this?
>  
I use the functionality daily, so I'm biased, same as mattdm. I consider it
really a basic desktop functionality. On our home laptop, my wife never
logs out. Why would she, she just closes the lid and the laptop goes to
sleep. When I want to do something, I simply log it as my own user, do what
I need, and again shut the lid. I reboot the laptop twice a month when I
apply updates. There is almost never just a single user logged in. The idea
that we only validate Fedora for a single-user scenario, where the whole
system can be used just by a single user at any moment, feels... almost
obscene given our UNIX heritage :-) In the past when we had some user
switching issues, it was a huge pain for me, because my wife will never
remember Ctrl+Alt+Fx shortcuts to workaround a framebuffer switching
problem. And constantly making sure the other person is not logged in, and
asking him/her to log out if he/she is, is nothing but a headache. It makes
the home laptop use case completely broken. Not to mention it's really hard
to answer her questions about why we're using something that broken.

In the past, there were concerns about graphics drivers quality. They have
hopefully improved. But I'll repeat again - we have safeguards against
issues that affect just a portion of our hardware. We can be explicit about
it in the criterion, or we can have it implied from our standard
procedures. If the bug only happens on e.g. nouveau, we don't need to block
on it (especially given its maintenance status and Nvidia's zero help). If
the bug only happens on a single Intel GPU family, ditto. If the bug
happens to all radeon or all intel users, well, we would definitely have a
conversation about it. If the bug happens to everyone, all bare metal and
also including VMs, that's a clear indication that the problem is not in
drivers but in our software, and would be a blocker.
It's also possible to remove drivers from the picture completely and only
cover the last mentioned scenario ("happens on all bare metal and VMs") in
the criterion, if developers desire it. It would be weak, but would
definitely be a step in the right direction.

[Lukas Ruzicka]

The idea that we only validate Fedora for a single-user scenario, where the
>  whole system can be used just by a single user at any moment,
> feels...
>  almost obscene given our UNIX heritage :-)
>  
I especially like this one :)

-- 

Lukáš Růžička

FEDORA QE, RHCE

Red Hat

<https://www.redhat.com>

Purkyňova 115

612 45 Brno - Královo Pole

lruzicka(a)redhat.com
TRIED AND PERSONALLY TESTED, ERGO TRUSTED. <https://redhat.com/trusted>

[Neal Gompa]

On Tue, Apr 14, 2020 at 2:14 PM Adam Williamson
<adamwill(a)fedoraproject.org&gt; wrote:
>  Hi folks!
>
>  So, during Fedora 32 Final blocker review, a bug relating to "user
>  switching" came up for review:
>
>  https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1817708
>
>  I dug into the question of whether we have tended to consider the "log
>  in / log out / shut down / reboot" criterion as covering user
>  switching, and found that this issue is actually kinda outstanding and
>  unresolved for a long time.
>
>  Back in January 2015, we kinda provisionally decided that we *did* want
>  to block on user switching bugs, by accepting this one as a blocker
>  during a review meeting:
>
>  https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1184933
>
>  kparal was detailed to propose clearly adding it to the criteria, and
>  he duly drafted up a change and mailed it to the relevant lists -
>  test@, kde@ and desktop@:
>
>  https://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2015-January/124811.html
>  https://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/kde/2015-January/014175.html
>  https://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/desktop/2015-January/011558.html
>
>  However, here things foundered a bit because there was some opposition
>  to the idea. The discussion is spread across the three lists, but my
>  reading is broadly that there were distinct camps in favour of and
>  against blocking on user switching bugs. Prominent "pro-blocking" folks
>  were Michael Catanzaro and Kevin Kofler. Prominent "anti-blocking"
>  folks were Matthias Clasen, Rex Dieter and Josh Boyer. Obviously that's
>  a particularly awkward split because we have pro- and anti- folks on
>  both the desktop and KDE teams.
>
>  The discussion was pretty active, but in the end it sort of petered out
>  without any definite conclusion being reached. The draft changes Kamil
>  proposed were never made, and the criterion remained as it was before.
>
>  For the purposes of our specific F32 blocker proposal we decided to
>  adopt the principle that, since there was a discussion that clearly did
>  not reach a consensus that user switching *should* be release-blocking,
>  we could not really treat it as such, and thus we rejected the bug as a
>  blocker. But I figured it would probably be a good idea to bring the
>  topic up again and try to come to a definite conclusion this time.
>
>  So, once again: do we think it makes sense to consider desktop user
>  switching - that is, switching between multiple active desktop sessions
>  for different users, without logging out and in - as release-blocking?
>  Has anyone who was active in the previous discussion changed their mind
>  on this?
>
>  I suppose one question that could potentially arise is whether we could
>  treat it as release-blocking for GNOME but not for KDE, or vice versa.
>  In general I think it's a good goal to try and keep our standards
>  similar across our release-blocking desktops, but I do think we could
>  at least consider that, if the discussion seemed to be going in that
>  direction. 
Unfortunately I missed the discussion because of $DAYJOB stuff...

From my perspective in Workstation WG and member of KDE SIG, I would
say that we should consider this release blocking. This is a somewhat
common use-case on family/shared computers that we should have
working.

(I am a tiny bit biased, I've set up several Fedora systems where this
feature has been used heavily...)




--
真実はいつも一つ！/ Always, there's only one truth!

[Michael Catanzaro]

On Tue, Apr 14, 2020 at 11:13 am, Adam Williamson 
<adamwill(a)fedoraproject.org&gt; wrote:
>  So, once again: do we think it makes sense to consider desktop user
>  switching - that is, switching between multiple active desktop 
>  sessions
>  for different users, without logging out and in - as release-blocking? 
Workstation WG agrees that user switching should be release blocking. 
We trust QA will write the specific release criterion.

[Adam Williamson]

On Tue, 2020-04-28 at 09:26 -0500, Michael Catanzaro wrote:
>  On Tue, Apr 14, 2020 at 11:13 am, Adam Williamson 
>  <adamwill(a)fedoraproject.org&gt; wrote:
>  > So, once again: do we think it makes sense to consider desktop user
>  > switching - that is, switching between multiple active desktop 
>  > sessions
>  > for different users, without logging out and in - as release-blocking?
>  
>  Workstation WG agrees that user switching should be release blocking. 
>  We trust QA will write the specific release criterion. 
Obvious thing to do would be to resurrect kparal's old draft. So, KDE
team, since we'll be blocking on this for GNOME, do you want us to
include KDE too or make it Workstation-only? Thanks!
-- 
Adam Williamson
Fedora QA Community Monkey
IRC: adamw | Twitter: AdamW_Fedora | XMPP: adamw AT happyassassin . net
http://www.happyassassin.net

[Neal Gompa]

On Tue, Apr 28, 2020 at 12:01 PM Adam Williamson
<adamwill(a)fedoraproject.org&gt; wrote:
>  On Tue, 2020-04-28 at 09:26 -0500, Michael Catanzaro wrote:
>  > On Tue, Apr 14, 2020 at 11:13 am, Adam Williamson
>  > <adamwill(a)fedoraproject.org&gt; wrote:
>  > > So, once again: do we think it makes sense to consider desktop user
>  > > switching - that is, switching between multiple active desktop
>  > > sessions
>  > > for different users, without logging out and in - as release-blocking?
>  >
>  > Workstation WG agrees that user switching should be release blocking.
>  > We trust QA will write the specific release criterion.
>
>  Obvious thing to do would be to resurrect kparal's old draft. So, KDE
>  team, since we'll be blocking on this for GNOME, do you want us to
>  include KDE too or make it Workstation-only? Thanks! 
I believe Rex mentioned earlier in the thread[1] that it should
include KDE. As a member of both Workstation WG and KDE SIG, I support
this.

[1]:
https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/[e-mail]...


-- 
真実はいつも一つ！/ Always, there's only one truth!

[Adam Williamson]

On Tue, 2020-04-28 at 12:04 -0400, Neal Gompa wrote:
>  On Tue, Apr 28, 2020 at 12:01 PM Adam Williamson
>  <adamwill(a)fedoraproject.org&gt; wrote:
>  > On Tue, 2020-04-28 at 09:26 -0500, Michael Catanzaro wrote:
>  > > On Tue, Apr 14, 2020 at 11:13 am, Adam Williamson
>  > > <adamwill(a)fedoraproject.org&gt; wrote:
>  > > > So, once again: do we think it makes sense to consider desktop user
>  > > > switching - that is, switching between multiple active desktop
>  > > > sessions
>  > > > for different users, without logging out and in - as release-blocking?
>  > > 
>  > > Workstation WG agrees that user switching should be release blocking.
>  > > We trust QA will write the specific release criterion.
>  > 
>  > Obvious thing to do would be to resurrect kparal's old draft. So, KDE
>  > team, since we'll be blocking on this for GNOME, do you want us to
>  > include KDE too or make it Workstation-only? Thanks!
>  
>  I believe Rex mentioned earlier in the thread[1] that it should
>  include KDE. As a member of both Workstation WG and KDE SIG, 
*record scratch*

wait, is that even legal?!
-- 
Adam Williamson
Fedora QA Community Monkey
IRC: adamw | Twitter: AdamW_Fedora | XMPP: adamw AT happyassassin . net
http://www.happyassassin.net

[Neal Gompa]

On Tue, Apr 28, 2020 at 3:05 PM Adam Williamson
<adamwill(a)fedoraproject.org&gt; wrote:
>  On Tue, 2020-04-28 at 12:04 -0400, Neal Gompa wrote:
>  > On Tue, Apr 28, 2020 at 12:01 PM Adam Williamson
>  > <adamwill(a)fedoraproject.org&gt; wrote:
>  > > On Tue, 2020-04-28 at 09:26 -0500, Michael Catanzaro wrote:
>  > > > On Tue, Apr 14, 2020 at 11:13 am, Adam Williamson
>  > > > <adamwill(a)fedoraproject.org&gt; wrote:
>  > > > > So, once again: do we think it makes sense to consider desktop user
>  > > > > switching - that is, switching between multiple active desktop
>  > > > > sessions
>  > > > > for different users, without logging out and in - as
> release-blocking?
>  > > >
>  > > > Workstation WG agrees that user switching should be release blocking.
>  > > > We trust QA will write the specific release criterion.
>  > >
>  > > Obvious thing to do would be to resurrect kparal's old draft. So, KDE
>  > > team, since we'll be blocking on this for GNOME, do you want us to
>  > > include KDE too or make it Workstation-only? Thanks!
>  >
>  > I believe Rex mentioned earlier in the thread[1] that it should
>  > include KDE. As a member of both Workstation WG and KDE SIG,
>
>  *record scratch*
>
>  wait, is that even legal?! 
Well, I hope so! I replaced Rex as the KDE guy on the Workstation WG
last year... :)

It's been a fun experience so far, we'll see how far I can take it. :D



-- 
真実はいつも一つ！/ Always, there's only one truth!

[Adam Williamson]

On Tue, 2020-04-28 at 09:26 -0500, Michael Catanzaro wrote:
>  On Tue, Apr 14, 2020 at 11:13 am, Adam Williamson 
>  <adamwill(a)fedoraproject.org&gt; wrote:
>  > So, once again: do we think it makes sense to consider desktop user
>  > switching - that is, switching between multiple active desktop 
>  > sessions
>  > for different users, without logging out and in - as release-blocking?
>  
>  Workstation WG agrees that user switching should be release blocking.  
So, we have a present for you :)

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1829079
-- 
Adam Williamson
Fedora QA Community Monkey
IRC: adamw | Twitter: AdamW_Fedora | XMPP: adamw AT happyassassin . net
http://www.happyassassin.net