5:11 p.m.
Hi,
As I get too many conflicts, first with the french translation team six month
ago, second with some Redhat people, today, with a big head (as several
people in the french translation team), I make the decision to definitevely
leave the Fedora Extras Team.
So, as I merged some useful software in Fedora, I hope somebody would continue
on them.
Most of them are electronics relative.
- fcron [1]
- gputils
- gpsim
- gtk+extras
- kicad
- kbackup
- pikdev
- piklab
- pikloops
- utrac
- tetex-euro-font
Hope I don't miss somebody.
I'll delete also in a few days my man-pages-fr repository, as the Redhat
packager never consider me again.
And as we say in the french navy: « Bon vent, bonne mer »
No more regards than you give me.
Alain
[1] fcron is a better tool than cron and anacron
--
Les pages de manuel Linux en français
http://manpagesfr.free.fr/
3:50 a.m.
2008/4/26 Alain PORTAL <alain.portal(a)free.fr>:
Hi,
As I get too many conflicts, first with the french translation team six month
ago, second with some Redhat people, today, with a big head (as several
people in the french translation team), I make the decision to definitevely
leave the Fedora Extras Team.
[...]
- gputils
- gpsim
[...]
Although I do not use PIC-controllers myself, I am willing to take on
these two packages unless anyone who use them frequently are willing
to step up.
--
Trond Danielsen
2:22 p.m.
Le samedi 26 avril 2008, Trond Danielsen a écrit :
> [...]
> - gputils
> - gpsim
> [...]
Although I do not use PIC-controllers myself, I am willing to take on
these two packages unless anyone who use them frequently are willing
to step up.
You should consider to take also gtk+extras as this is a requirement for
gpsim. All theses packages are very slow releasing;
Reagrds,
Alain
--
Les pages de manuel Linux en français
http://manpagesfr.free.fr/
4:02 a.m.
On Sat, 26 Apr 2008 00:11:33 +0200, Alain PORTAL wrote:
Hi,
As I get too many conflicts, first with the french translation team six month
ago, second with some Redhat people, today, with a big head (as several
people in the french translation team), I make the decision to definitevely
leave the Fedora Extras Team.
Alain, can't these issues with people be fixed instead?
In the past, somebody from the old FESCO would have looked into it and
would have tried to talk to you and the people you have problems with.
Nowadays, there should also be somebody in the Fedora community or in
Fedora leadership with interest in keeping people happy and
cooperative. Have you discussed your problems elsewhere before?
--
Fedora release 8 (Werewolf) - Linux 2.6.23.15-137.fc8
loadavg: 1.21 1.16 0.81
4:05 a.m.
Michael Schwendt wrote:
On Sat, 26 Apr 2008 00:11:33 +0200, Alain PORTAL wrote:
> Hi,
>
> As I get too many conflicts, first with the french translation team six month
> ago, second with some Redhat people, today, with a big head (as several
> people in the french translation team), I make the decision to definitevely
> leave the Fedora Extras Team.
Alain, can't these issues with people be fixed instead?
In the past, somebody from the old FESCO would have looked into it and
would have tried to talk to you and the people you have problems with.
Nowadays, there should also be somebody in the Fedora community or in
Fedora leadership with interest in keeping people happy and
cooperative. Have you discussed your problems elsewhere before?
+1
If people are unhappy for whatever reason we really should try to fix that
instead of havingn people leave our community.
Regards,
Hans
4:42 a.m.
On 26.04.2008 11:02, Michael Schwendt wrote:
In the past, somebody from the old FESCO would have looked into it and
would have tried to talk to you and the people you have problems with.
Nowadays, there should also be somebody in the Fedora community or in
Fedora leadership with interest in keeping people happy and
cooperative.
Why can't FESCo handle that instead of discussing Fetures over and over?
That how it afaics was supposed to be, as everyone wanted to keep FESCo
when the merge happened because most people back then liked the work
FESCO did (it IMHO could have been a lot better, but that's a different
issue).
Cu
knurd
7:48 a.m.
On Sat, 2008-04-26 at 11:42 +0200, Thorsten Leemhuis wrote:
On 26.04.2008 11:02, Michael Schwendt wrote:
>
> In the past, somebody from the old FESCO would have looked into it and
> would have tried to talk to you and the people you have problems with.
> Nowadays, there should also be somebody in the Fedora community or in
> Fedora leadership with interest in keeping people happy and
> cooperative.
Why can't FESCo handle that instead of discussing Fetures over and over?
That how it afaics was supposed to be, as everyone wanted to keep FESCo
when the merge happened because most people back then liked the work
FESCO did (it IMHO could have been a lot better, but that's a different
issue).
FESCo can't help if it doesn't know there is a problem. This is the
first time I've heard of these issues.
josh
8:13 a.m.
On Sat, 26 Apr 2008 07:48:18 -0500, Josh Boyer wrote:
On Sat, 2008-04-26 at 11:42 +0200, Thorsten Leemhuis wrote:
> On 26.04.2008 11:02, Michael Schwendt wrote:
> >
> > In the past, somebody from the old FESCO would have looked into it and
> > would have tried to talk to you and the people you have problems with.
> > Nowadays, there should also be somebody in the Fedora community or in
> > Fedora leadership with interest in keeping people happy and
> > cooperative.
>
> Why can't FESCo handle that instead of discussing Fetures over and over?
> That how it afaics was supposed to be, as everyone wanted to keep FESCo
> when the merge happened because most people back then liked the work
> FESCO did (it IMHO could have been a lot better, but that's a different
> issue).
FESCo can't help if it doesn't know there is a problem. This is the
first time I've heard of these issues.
That's why I asked _two_ questions. Deleted by Thorsten in the quote,
however.
--
Fedora release 8 (Werewolf) - Linux 2.6.23.15-137.fc8
loadavg: 1.16 1.17 1.07
10:35 a.m.
New subject: FESCO (was: Re: Orphaning package)
Some introduction words: The Fedora-world changed a lot due to the Core
and Extras merge and thus FESCo changed a lot as well (and had to).
Yes, *I'm* totally unhappy with how FESCo changed and how it works these
days(¹). But that#s just me and my option -- others seem to be more
happy. And I don't want to blame the current FESCo members how things
evolved. I think it just happened without purpose; in fact I suppose
it's likely that a lot of things might be similar if I would still be in
FESCo(²), because FESCo has a whole lot more to do these days. Maybe to
much, especially if you want to keep up with FESCo work as spare-time
contributer.
IOW: Fedora IMHO has growing pains. I mentioned that earlier, tried to
work against that/to improve things without being in FESCo or the board,
but failed to often and thus decided to reduce my Fedora contributions
to a minimum.
On 26.04.2008 15:13, Michael Schwendt wrote:
On Sat, 26 Apr 2008 07:48:18 -0500, Josh Boyer wrote:
> On Sat, 2008-04-26 at 11:42 +0200, Thorsten Leemhuis wrote:
>> On 26.04.2008 11:02, Michael Schwendt wrote:
>>> In the past, somebody from the old FESCO would have looked into it and
>>> would have tried to talk to you and the people you have problems with.
>>> Nowadays, there should also be somebody in the Fedora community or in
>>> Fedora leadership with interest in keeping people happy and
>>> cooperative.
>> Why can't FESCo handle that instead of discussing Fetures over and over?
>> That how it afaics was supposed to be, as everyone wanted to keep FESCo
>> when the merge happened because most people back then liked the work
>> FESCO did (it IMHO could have been a lot better, but that's a different
>> issue).
> FESCo can't help if it doesn't know there is a problem.
And that is in fact the biggest problem *I* have with FESCo these days.
FESCo afaics is mostly event driven these days (triggered by releases or
people that poke FESCO to approve or do something); the contact
to/interest in the contributers (and their option) was lost/got a lot worse.
In the Extras days it IMHO was different -- FESCo then of course had to
do some things that were triggered by events as well, but a lot of time
was spend in a "how to improve Extras to make it better for users and
contributers to keep both groups happy (and make them even
happier!)"-mode. For that we were in closer contact with the
contributers (their number of course was smaller and thus it was also
easier).
That's why I asked _two_ questions. Deleted by Thorsten in the
quote,
however.
I didn't stop anybody from answering those and are interested in the
answers myself, but I found the quoted part more interesting and the
part I wrote was related to it, thus I only quoted that.
Cu
knurd
(¹) -- I mentioned that two or three months ago on FAB already in a
similar discussion. After that I send a mail to a bunch of German
contributers and we discussed things for two or three weeks in private.
I send a summary of that discussion to Paul some weeks ago. A really
short summary afaics would be: Most liked the merge in general (like I
do), but most agreed that things from a contributers point of view got a
lot worse.
(²) -- an no, I won't run in the next FESCo elections; it's not possible
due to conflicting interest with my day job; that was something
different when FESCo only managed Extras
12:21 p.m.
New subject: FESCO (was: Re: Orphaning package)
On Sat, 2008-04-26 at 17:35 +0200, Thorsten Leemhuis wrote:
On 26.04.2008 15:13, Michael Schwendt wrote:
> On Sat, 26 Apr 2008 07:48:18 -0500, Josh Boyer wrote:
>> On Sat, 2008-04-26 at 11:42 +0200, Thorsten Leemhuis wrote:
>>> On 26.04.2008 11:02, Michael Schwendt wrote:
>>>> In the past, somebody from the old FESCO would have looked into it and
>>>> would have tried to talk to you and the people you have problems with.
>>>> Nowadays, there should also be somebody in the Fedora community or in
>>>> Fedora leadership with interest in keeping people happy and
>>>> cooperative.
>>> Why can't FESCo handle that instead of discussing Fetures over and
over?
>>> That how it afaics was supposed to be, as everyone wanted to keep FESCo
>>> when the merge happened because most people back then liked the work
>>> FESCO did (it IMHO could have been a lot better, but that's a different
>>> issue).
>> FESCo can't help if it doesn't know there is a problem.
And that is in fact the biggest problem *I* have with FESCo these days.
FESCo afaics is mostly event driven these days (triggered by releases or
people that poke FESCO to approve or do something); the contact
to/interest in the contributers (and their option) was lost/got a lot worse.
You should have sent this as a totally separate email, rather than pick
on a thread where:
1) As far as I can tell, this is the _first_ time the conflicts have
been mentioned in public _anywhere_.
2) FESCo has recently resolved a few conflicts issues that were brought
to our attention
3) You provide no offer of a solution on how to be non-event driven.
Look at the setup of FESCo as a whole now. It's primarily SIG focused,
with FESCo overseeing the bulk of those. In the Extras days, FESCo
_was_ the SIG.
Like you said, there's growing pains. And unbeknownst to almost
everyone, FESCo has actually had some discussions on how to _change_
it's model to be a more contributory body rather than an approval/rubber
stamp committee. It's just that even among FESCo there isn't a general
consensus on how to do that, because as Fedora in general has grown more
diverse, so has it's governing body. So having FESCo focus solely on
development or marketing or infrastructure isn't going to benefit anyone
in the long run.
We're working on it. Have patience. Yes, have more patience than what
we've already asked for in the past. Or offer suggestions. Your rant
has been heard, and it has valid points.
josh
12:43 p.m.
New subject: FESCO
Thorsten Leemhuis wrote:
I think it just happened without purpose; in fact I suppose
it's likely that a lot of things might be similar if I would still be in
FESCo(²), because FESCo has a whole lot more to do these days. Maybe to
much, especially if you want to keep up with FESCo work as spare-time
contributer.
<nod>. You touched on this with your note about the Feature Process as
well. One possibility is that FESCo should be delegating smooth running
processes more. In the features case, the Feature Policy is working
pretty well for making features better but there's no reason to couple
it so tightly to FESCo. There's a procedure for getting a new feature
into Fedora now so FESCo could delegate the review of Features to a
subgroup.
However, see below for a larger, more general discussion.
[snip]
And that is in fact the biggest problem *I* have with FESCo these
days.
FESCo afaics is mostly event driven these days (triggered by releases or
people that poke FESCO to approve or do something); the contact
to/interest in the contributers (and their option) was lost/got a lot worse.
In the Extras days it IMHO was different -- FESCo then of course had to
do some things that were triggered by events as well, but a lot of time
was spend in a "how to improve Extras to make it better for users and
contributers to keep both groups happy (and make them even
happier!)"-mode. For that we were in closer contact with the
contributers (their number of course was smaller and thus it was also
easier).
I can't honestly say whether this was better in the Extras days (looking
back on things is always subject to idealization) but it's definitely a
worthwhile goal for the future. So part of the question would be how do
we reach that goal? I know that many of the FESCo members are on IRC
reading conversations of contributors all day everyday. Likewise with
fedora-devel. So problems that get mentioned there would nearly always
be seen. Is there a failure to push from IRC chatter to official FESCo
business? (I recall jwb, tibbs, and nirik, all bringing problems
noticed through other channels to FESCo so I personally don't think this
is the case.) Is the problem getting issues to percolate from reports
in bugzilla out to a more public venue? (Perhaps this is something bug
triage would like to take on? Noticing a problem in
Guidelines/unresponsive maintainers/etc and querying whether the issue
should be mentioned on the mailinglist?)
Although that is all still event driven. Perhaps the need is for more
ideas to be started in FESCo? Policies, features, new projects started
by FESCo to make growth occur? The only issue with that is that FESCo
has limited manpower. FESCo itself can't implement all the projects it
could come up with. Being event driven means that someone cares enough
about the issue to work on it outside of FESCo. But it does change the
role of FESCo from "movers and shakers" to "arbitrators and judges".
So here's a question -- should FESCo embrace the arbitrators and judges
role and we, the project, need to start implementing new outlets for
people who want to actually do things? (ie: Feature Process allows
developers to get buyin for implementing global distro changes and
provides a mechanism for developer work to be communicated to other
people in the project who are affected by those changes.)
or
should FESCo concentrate on being the drivers of new changes? Which
means, being more involved with creating new policies, new subprojects,
etc. This, in turn, means that FESCo would be a much more active body,
with less time for arbitration and judgement of current projects. So it
should be delegating those responsibilities out while it works on
building new communities around new subprojects.
-Toshio
1:55 a.m.
New subject: FCoA [Was: Re: FESCO]
On Sat, 26 Apr 2008 10:43:49 -0700, Toshio Kuratomi scripst:
should FESCo concentrate on being the drivers of new changes? Which
means, being more involved with creating new policies, new subprojects,
etc. This, in turn, means that FESCo would be a much more active body,
with less time for arbitration and judgement of current projects. So it
should be delegating those responsibilities out while it works on
building new communities around new subprojects.
So, should be there a Fedora Court of Arbitration? ;-) I mean seriously,
in so huge and disintegrated body as Fedora community is now, conflicts
are bound to happend, and we may need some semi-official means of
settling them.
(of course, Fedora being a very different type of community than "the
real world", most of the rules of arbitration from there wouldn't apply
or would have to be severely modified, so please no legalese here for
now).
Matěj
-- That's the second time in one reading of fedora-devel my lawyer's past
risen its ugly head; scary :-(
--
The content of this message is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution 3.0 License, Some Rights Reserved.
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/us/
3:02 a.m.
New subject: FCoA [Was: Re: FESCO]
On Sun, Apr 27, 2008 at 08:55:16AM +0200, Matej Cepl wrote:
So, should be there a Fedora Court of Arbitration? ;-) I mean seriously,
in so huge and disintegrated body as Fedora community is now, conflicts
are bound to happend, and we may need some semi-official means of
settling them.
It is already the case. The rule is more or less, bring it to the lists
and then to fesco. But this is costly so having propoer guidelines to
follow like AWOL are better.
--
Pat
3:08 a.m.
New subject: FCoA [Was: Re: FESCO]
Patrice Dumas wrote:
On Sun, Apr 27, 2008 at 08:55:16AM +0200, Matej Cepl wrote:
> So, should be there a Fedora Court of Arbitration? ;-) I mean seriously,
> in so huge and disintegrated body as Fedora community is now, conflicts
> are bound to happend, and we may need some semi-official means of
> settling them.
It is already the case. The rule is more or less, bring it to the lists
and then to fesco. But this is costly so having propoer guidelines to
follow like AWOL are better.
Hmm why is it costly ? I've had a few conflicts resolved that way, and
in a reasonably speedy fashion. I don't think I've ever seen a call for
help on fedora-devel-list going unanswered...
Going over this thread this morning, it read something like this :
13:21 [a]: I quit because of this problem I didn't tell anyone about!
13:23 [b]: It's an outrage! What is FESCo doing ?!?
13:25 [Fesco]: ¿ Qué ?
3:47 a.m.
New subject: FCoA [Was: Re: FESCO]
2008/4/27 Denis Leroy <denis(a)poolshark.org>:
Patrice Dumas wrote:
> On Sun, Apr 27, 2008 at 08:55:16AM +0200, Matej Cepl wrote:
>
> > So, should be there a Fedora Court of Arbitration? ;-) I mean
> > seriously, in so huge and disintegrated body as Fedora community is now,
> > conflicts are bound to happend, and we may need some semi-official means of
> > settling them.
> >
>
> It is already the case. The rule is more or less, bring it to the lists
> and then to fesco. But this is costly so having propoer guidelines to
> follow like AWOL are better.
>
Hmm why is it costly ? I've had a few conflicts resolved that way, and in
a reasonably speedy fashion. I don't think I've ever seen a call for help on
fedora-devel-list going unanswered...
Going over this thread this morning, it read something like this :
13:21 [a]: I quit because of this problem I didn't tell anyone about!
13:23 [b]: It's an outrage! What is FESCo doing ?!?
13:25 [Fesco]: ¿ Qué ?
I think many of the people who have left active contribution life, myself
included, simply feel overwhelmed with the amount of beaucracy. Why
complain, we already feel like we are being forced around by boards and
commitees who meet and decide the fate for us all and it doesn't really feel
like they are working for us. It feels very much like we have no influence.
More beaucracy is not the solution here, I think lessening the effort needed
to get help and let your voice be heard is. Let us start a Fedora Mentor
program for new contributors, to guide through the little kinks with a smile
and so new people have a friendly face to turn to instead of endless wiki
pages. Right now being a contributor feels a lot like being thrown out of
the nest by your sponsor and expected to fly, getting reviews done has a
discouraging nepotistic feel to it, you can have packages sitting around for
months if you don't know anyone. We need some kind of network here to catch
these little stumbling blocks that frustrate new developers.
We need to ensure a way to remove the bottlenecks, help explain how to do a
good review, how to get the information mentioned in those guidelines.
Everytime we get a contributor who does not master this we simply add to the
workload of people who do and we add to the backlog of packages that sit in
the review queue. More contributor might in fact end up being a bad thing.
Let us foster a culture where it is okay to ask questions and ask for help,
and make it easy to do so. Encourage developers with many packages to draw
in new developers, hold their hand as co-maintainers for one of their
packages and eventually let them own it. This way we would also avoid the
risk we currently have where if something happens to Hans or he decides to
switch priorities in life, 200 packages are without an owner overnight.
- David
4:55 a.m.
New subject: FCoA [Was: Re: FESCO]
On Sun, Apr 27, 2008 at 10:47:35AM +0200, David Nielsen wrote:
I think many of the people who have left active contribution life, myself
included, simply feel overwhelmed with the amount of beaucracy. Why
complain, we already feel like we are being forced around by boards and
commitees who meet and decide the fate for us all and it doesn't really feel
like they are working for us. It feels very much like we have no influence.
All kind of beaucracies don't have the same influence on community
empowerment. What I want here are rules such that it is easier for community
members to force other packagers to act upon bugs. Hopefully the new
rules should allow to bypass FESCo and end up being simpler. However,
these rules are not targeted at most of the contributors, but those who
propose solutions together with bugs, I think it is a small part of the
contributors. And it is also directed against packagers who either don't
care much about their packages or are heavily under load and for an unknown
reason don't ask for co-maintainers, it is also a small part of the
packagers.
More beaucracy is not the solution here, I think lessening the effort
needed
to get help and let your voice be heard is. Let us start a Fedora Mentor
program for new contributors, to guide through the little kinks with a smile
This is the role of the sponsor.
and so new people have a friendly face to turn to instead of endless
wiki
pages. Right now being a contributor feels a lot like being thrown out of
the nest by your sponsor and expected to fly, getting reviews done has a
I have never refused to answer questions from people I sponsored, and I even
try to follow a bit their acts, and I am pretty sure that it is the case
for every sponsor. Did your sponsor ignored you?
discouraging nepotistic feel to it, you can have packages sitting
around for
months if you don't know anyone.
I don't think this 'nepotistic feel' is right. The problem is rather
that reviews require to find an interested reviewer with the needed
skills. Therefore groups form with shared interests and in these groups
reviews will be done much rapidly. Otherwise one have to wait for a good
soul like Tibbs, Parag or Mamoru (I recalled from the top of my head,
and I checked afterwards
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/PackageMaintainers/PackageStatus and I got
it right, even the order ;) who do a lot of diverse reviews to help you.
I agree that it is not very healthy, but I am not sure that it can be
avoided.
In the end these groups depend on who fedora attracts. I personally fear
that in the future the diversity will be reduced (though hopefully EPEL
could drag in other kind of people).
We need some kind of network here to catch
these little stumbling blocks that frustrate new developers.
I have never seen that, but I have heard that there are people on irc
almost always here and willing to help.
We need to ensure a way to remove the bottlenecks, help explain how
to do a
good review, how to get the information mentioned in those guidelines.
Everytime we get a contributor who does not master this we simply add to the
workload of people who do and we add to the backlog of packages that sit in
the review queue.
You mean by living people or by documents (for example like
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/PackagingDrafts/MultilibTricks).
More contributor might in fact end up being a bad thing.
Let us foster a culture where it is okay to ask questions and ask for help,
and make it easy to do so.
I think that questions on -devel list are never turned down and in
general people try to answer. The expertise may not be there, however.
Encourage developers with many packages to draw
in new developers, hold their hand as co-maintainers for one of their
packages and eventually let them own it.
Everybody can go to the package database and ask to be in initialCC and
in commit messages. However learning how to use the packagedb raises the
bar for newcommers.
I think that the reverse is also right, that is have the sponsor ask for
co-maintainership to be in initialCC and receive commit messages from
the people he sponsored.
This way we would also avoid the
risk we currently have where if something happens to Hans or he decides to
switch priorities in life, 200 packages are without an owner overnight.
We are not encouraging enough co-maintainership, I agree, but as far as
I can tell each time somebody went AWOL (some rather important packagers
did that in the past) things went smoothly. Maybe it won't in the
future, I don't know. There are certainly packages that will have hard
time finding anew maintainer. For example it seems to me that packagers
interested in fortran for example are not very numerous so if the few
people interested quit, the few packages will certainly be left.
But if gnome packages, even a big share, are orphaned they'll find new
maintainers soon, in my opinion.
--
Pat
3:53 p.m.
New subject: FCoA [Was: Re: FESCO]
2008/4/27 David Nielsen <gnomeuser(a)gmail.com>:
2008/4/27 Denis Leroy <denis(a)poolshark.org>:
>
> Patrice Dumas wrote:
>
> > On Sun, Apr 27, 2008 at 08:55:16AM +0200, Matej Cepl wrote:
> >
> > > So, should be there a Fedora Court of Arbitration? ;-) I mean
seriously, in so huge and disintegrated body as Fedora community is now,
conflicts are bound to happend, and we may need some semi-official means of
settling them.
> > >
> >
> > It is already the case. The rule is more or less, bring it to the lists
> > and then to fesco. But this is costly so having propoer guidelines to
> > follow like AWOL are better.
> >
>
> Hmm why is it costly ? I've had a few conflicts resolved that way, and in
a reasonably speedy fashion. I don't think I've ever seen a call for help on
fedora-devel-list going unanswered...
>
> Going over this thread this morning, it read something like this :
>
> 13:21 [a]: I quit because of this problem I didn't tell anyone about!
> 13:23 [b]: It's an outrage! What is FESCo doing ?!?
> 13:25 [Fesco]: ¿ Qué ?
I think many of the people who have left active contribution life, myself
included, simply feel overwhelmed with the amount of beaucracy. Why
Bureaucracy occurs as more people join a group. It occurs because
people are not mindless creatures and can not always agree on what
each one wants. Human communication is very lossy at best even when
people speak the same language. Even when people have the best
intentions, they will have their own interpretations of what is said
and will do things that look to be misaligned. You then add in
bureaucracy to keep that to a minimum (checklists, additional
meetings, re-approval to confirm that things are done as they were
first agreed etc etc.) When you add in people who do something for
their own 'gain' or their view of whats best, you add in more
bureaucracy to make sure that such corruption is caught and removed.
Bureaucracy grows at best as a n*log(n) of the size of the group...
but in some cases can grow at n^n. At some point every government
structure begins to fall down because you can't grow the checks,
balances, and work-flows (e.g. bureaucracy) to be efficient for the
size of an organization.
There are few "cures" to bureaucracy:
1) Small groups that stay in constant communication with each other.
This usually requires physical communication as humans pick that up
better than reading/listening. Usually after you get over 8-12 people
this begins to fall apart. You can try to scale that by keeping groups
reporting to each other and letting them have open communication, but
then you start adding in various bureaucracy to make sure that group A
didn't misreport (by purpose or accident) which causes breakdowns and
corruption.
2) Big stick rule. Someone has the big stick and anyone who does not
do what the Big Stick wants is hit with it. Groups can grow a lot
larger when they are being beaten/killed for falling out of line. Of
course at some point you can't hit enough people, so you have to give
out more sticks, and then you have to worry that someone else with a
stick is going to take your spot so you have to keep the 2ndary
beaters in line. At which point you have more bureaucracy.
Various forms of Anarchy or Libertine is usually only a cure as long
as you don't have people gaming the system. However since humans are
inherently greedy animals... they will start gaming the system for
their benefit (even if they do not think they are) which then causes
people to start banding together to stop that which becomes
bureaucracy and/or big stick rule rather quickly.
complain, we already feel like we are being forced around by boards
and
commitees who meet and decide the fate for us all and it doesn't really feel
like they are working for us. It feels very much like we have no influence.
More beaucracy is not the solution here, I think lessening the effort needed
to get help and let your voice be heard is. Let us start a Fedora Mentor
program for new contributors, to guide through the little kinks with a smile
and so new people have a friendly face to turn to instead of endless wiki
pages. Right now being a contributor feels a lot like being thrown out of
the nest by your sponsor and expected to fly, getting reviews done has a
discouraging nepotistic feel to it, you can have packages sitting around for
months if you don't know anyone. We need some kind of network here to catch
these little stumbling blocks that frustrate new developers.
We need to ensure a way to remove the bottlenecks, help explain how to do a
good review, how to get the information mentioned in those guidelines.
Everytime we get a contributor who does not master this we simply add to the
workload of people who do and we add to the backlog of packages that sit in
the review queue. More contributor might in fact end up being a bad thing.
Let us foster a culture where it is okay to ask questions and ask for help,
and make it easy to do so. Encourage developers with many packages to draw
in new developers, hold their hand as co-maintainers for one of their
packages and eventually let them own it. This way we would also avoid the
risk we currently have where if something happens to Hans or he decides to
switch priorities in life, 200 packages are without an owner overnight.
All that is more bureacracy in a different format than is currently
done. Someone (person A) has to check to see that the people are
getting serviced well, that developers do not get overloaded etc.
Someone (person B) has to check that the checks are being done by A
and whoever else because they get overloaded and may not get to all of
them but that leaves people falling through the cracks.
--
Stephen J Smoogen. -- CSIRT/Linux System Administrator
How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed
in a naughty world. = Shakespeare. "The Merchant of Venice"
4:30 p.m.
New subject: FCoA [Was: Re: FESCO]
Stephen John Smoogen <smooge <at> gmail.com> writes:
1) Small groups that stay in constant communication with each other.
Isn't that what our SIGs are?
This usually requires physical communication as humans pick that up
better than reading/listening.
At least for the KDE SIG, IRC is working pretty well.
Kevin Kofler
4:39 p.m.
New subject: FCoA [Was: Re: FESCO]
On Sun, Apr 27, 2008 at 3:30 PM, Kevin Kofler <kevin.kofler(a)chello.at> wrote:
Stephen John Smoogen <smooge <at> gmail.com> writes:
> 1) Small groups that stay in constant communication with each other.
Isn't that what our SIGs are?
Yes.. but the reporting, the forming of a SIG, the meetings, the
writing of webpages to inform people outside of a SIG, etc are all
forms of bureaucracy. The more work that a group needs to do, the more
such 'checks/balances/communication' are required because people
forget to send report (*cough*guilty*cough) etc.
> This usually requires physical communication as humans pick
that up
> better than reading/listening.
At least for the KDE SIG, IRC is working pretty well.
Kevin Kofler
--
fedora-devel-list mailing list
fedora-devel-list(a)redhat.com
https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-devel-list
--
Stephen J Smoogen. -- CSIRT/Linux System Administrator
How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed
in a naughty world. = Shakespeare. "The Merchant of Venice"
4:04 a.m.
New subject: FCoA [Was: Re: FESCO]
On Sun, Apr 27, 2008 at 10:08:56AM +0200, Denis Leroy wrote:
Hmm why is it costly ? I've had a few conflicts resolved that way, and in a
reasonably speedy fashion. I don't think I've ever seen a call for help on
fedora-devel-list going unanswered...
It doesn't scale. I sent my personal experience in
http://www.redhat.com/archives/rhl-devel-list/2008-February/msg00496.html
since then some bugs have been closed, but not all and I certainly reopened
at least the same number of similar bugs getting unhandled. And remember
how Michael Schwendt reacted to having his rightly reported bugs to be
closed.
Reporting the bugs packagers don't care about on the fedora-devel list
or to fesco is not right. Ther should be a way to oblige maintainers
without bothering everyone.
--
Pat
10:49 a.m.
New subject: FCoA [Was: Re: FESCO]
On Sun, 2008-04-27 at 11:04 +0200, Patrice Dumas wrote:
On Sun, Apr 27, 2008 at 10:08:56AM +0200, Denis Leroy wrote:
>
> Hmm why is it costly ? I've had a few conflicts resolved that way, and in a
> reasonably speedy fashion. I don't think I've ever seen a call for help on
> fedora-devel-list going unanswered...
It doesn't scale. I sent my personal experience in
http://www.redhat.com/archives/rhl-devel-list/2008-February/msg00496.html
since then some bugs have been closed, but not all and I certainly reopened
at least the same number of similar bugs getting unhandled. And remember
how Michael Schwendt reacted to having his rightly reported bugs to be
closed.
Reporting the bugs packagers don't care about on the fedora-devel list
or to fesco is not right. Ther should be a way to oblige maintainers
without bothering everyone.
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/PackageMaintainers/Policy/NonResponsiveMain...
Please feel free to help make this better.
--
Pat
--
Jesse Keating RHCE (jkeating.livejournal.com)
Fedora Project (fedoraproject.org/wiki/JesseKeating)
GPG Public Key (geek.j2solutions.net/jkeating.j2solutions.pub)
5:51 a.m.
New subject: FCoA [Was: Re: FESCO]
On Sun, 27 Apr 2008 10:02:11 +0200, Patrice Dumas scripst:
It is already the case. The rule is more or less, bring it to the
lists
and then to fesco. But this is costly so having propoer guidelines to
follow like AWOL are better.
Sure, but FESCO seems to be a little overloaded with just general
leadership stuff (deciding about features, etc.).
Matěj
--
The content of this message is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution 3.0 License, Some Rights Reserved.
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/us/
6:24 a.m.
New subject: FCoA [Was: Re: FESCO]
On Mon, Apr 28, 2008 at 12:51:46PM +0200, Matej Cepl wrote:
On Sun, 27 Apr 2008 10:02:11 +0200, Patrice Dumas scripst:
> It is already the case. The rule is more or less, bring it to the lists
> and then to fesco. But this is costly so having propoer guidelines to
> follow like AWOL are better.
Sure, but FESCO seems to be a little overloaded with just general
leadership stuff (deciding about features, etc.).
That's exactly my point. For such issues, a specific guideline which
allows not to involve FESCo would be better.
--
Pat
10:48 a.m.
New subject: FCoA [Was: Re: FESCO]
On 4/28/08, Patrice Dumas <pertusus(a)free.fr> wrote:
On Mon, Apr 28, 2008 at 12:51:46PM +0200, Matej Cepl wrote:
> On Sun, 27 Apr 2008 10:02:11 +0200, Patrice Dumas scripst:
> > It is already the case. The rule is more or less, bring it to the lists
> > and then to fesco. But this is costly so having propoer guidelines to
> > follow like AWOL are better.
>
> Sure, but FESCO seems to be a little overloaded with just general
> leadership stuff (deciding about features, etc.).
That's exactly my point. For such issues, a specific guideline which
allows not to involve FESCo would be better.
I respectfully disagree. A _better_ solution would be for FESCo to
spend less time deciding features, and more time focusing on community
issues and development.
josh
4:13 p.m.
New subject: FCoA [Was: Re: FESCO]
On Mon, Apr 28, 2008 at 11:48:08AM -0400, Josh Boyer wrote:
>
> That's exactly my point. For such issues, a specific guideline which
> allows not to involve FESCo would be better.
I respectfully disagree. A _better_ solution would be for FESCo to
spend less time deciding features, and more time focusing on community
issues and development.
I agree with your sentence, but it is not contradictory with what I say,
guidelines to avoid involving FESCo for 'stale bugs with solution
proposed by the submitter' will certainly help FESCo focusing on community
issues and development. There could be, in that guideline, recourse to
FESCo, but this should not be the first thing to do in such case.
--
Pat
1:14 a.m.
New subject: FESCO
Sorry for the late reply.
On 26.04.2008 19:43, Toshio Kuratomi wrote:
Thorsten Leemhuis wrote:
> I think it just happened without purpose; in fact I suppose
> it's likely that a lot of things might be similar if I would still be in
> FESCo(²), because FESCo has a whole lot more to do these days. Maybe to
> much, especially if you want to keep up with FESCo work as spare-time
> contributer.
<nod>. You touched on this with your note about the Feature Process as
well. One possibility is that FESCo should be delegating smooth running
processes more. In the features case, the Feature Policy is working
pretty well for making features better but there's no reason to couple
it so tightly to FESCo. There's a procedure for getting a new feature
into Fedora now so FESCo could delegate the review of Features to a
subgroup.
+1
[...]
> And that is in fact the biggest problem *I* have with FESCo these days.
> FESCo afaics is mostly event driven these days (triggered by releases or
> people that poke FESCO to approve or do something); the contact
> to/interest in the contributers (and their option) was lost/got a lot worse.
>
> In the Extras days it IMHO was different -- FESCo then of course had to
> do some things that were triggered by events as well, but a lot of time
> was spend in a "how to improve Extras to make it better for users and
> contributers to keep both groups happy (and make them even
> happier!)"-mode. For that we were in closer contact with the
> contributers (their number of course was smaller and thus it was also
> easier).
I can't honestly say whether this was better in the Extras days (looking
back on things is always subject to idealization)
Hehe, much agreed to the "looking back..." part :-))
But for Extras I really think it was a whole lot better then and got
that feeling backed a bit in the private discussion among some German
contributers and I doubt that all of those had the "looking
back..."-syndrome.
but it's definitely a
worthwhile goal for the future. So part of the question would be how do
we reach that goal? I know that many of the FESCo members are on IRC
reading conversations of contributors all day everyday. Likewise with
fedora-devel.
If you want my 2 cent: the big problem afaics is that most FESCo members
are quite busy with real-life and to many other work for Fedora. That
not meant as a attack or complain -- as I mentioned earlier, it's a
whole lot of more work these days and often things just happen somehow
(like in this case).
So problems that get mentioned there would nearly always
be seen. Is there a failure to push from IRC chatter to official FESCo
business? (I recall jwb, tibbs, and nirik, all bringing problems
noticed through other channels to FESCo so I personally don't think this
is the case.)
The problem for me are all those little details that seem to be wrong
and that one runs into walls/bureaucracy way to often.
Do you remember the old RHL and Fedora Core days before the merge?
Sometimes Fedora.us or Fedora Extras noticed problems in RHL or Fedora
and we tried to work together with RH-people to change that. Often that
worked quite well, but often it was a hard and frustrating fight that
the community contributers sometimes lost. RH or RH-people back then
were often blamed.
From my point of view we act similar now. IOW: dealing with all the
committees sometimes feels to me like dealing with RH or RH-people in
the old days. Just that community contributers like you and I were or
are part of the whole organization, so we can't blame RH alone anymore.
Is the problem getting issues to percolate from reports
in bugzilla out to a more public venue? (Perhaps this is something bug
triage would like to take on? Noticing a problem in
Guidelines/unresponsive maintainers/etc and querying whether the issue
should be mentioned on the mailinglist?)
Hmmm.
/me thinks about that for a moment
Yes, I suspect for some people part of the problem really might be "to
percolate from reports in bugzilla out to a more public venue". That
became a bigger problem as the number of contributers grew a lot.
But for me it's a more a "I have a open ear for your problems; just come
and tell me about it" vs. "I'm looking after you all the time and think
I noticed you have some problems; should we try to solve them together".
FESCo of course has a open ear and will help if problems get reported.
If that wouldn't be the case we would have a big problem.
But I think FESCo should act on it's own, look out for problems and
solve them while in parallel improve things for everyone. For that FESCo
in the Extras days for example maintained the following page to make
sure all ideas are listed somewhere and get get worked if there are some
spare cycles:
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Development/Schedule/IdeasContainer
That page is completely outdated and unmaintained these days.
Although that is all still event driven. Perhaps the need is for
more
ideas to be started in FESCo?
Like collecting ideas on a page like those mentioned above and picking
some of the things up to get them solved if there are free cycles or if
the problem becomes pressing
Policies, features, new projects started by FESCo to make growth
occur?
+1 -- albeit not started and more managed/guided; see below.
The only issue with that is that FESCo
has limited manpower. FESCo itself can't implement all the projects it
could come up with.
Of course. Nobody asked for that. FESCO in fact shouldn't do everything
alone as exactly letting people do things is what's needed; then those
people can grow into the community and some of them might sooner or
later be our next leaders or FESCo/Board members. That how it worked in
the past and that's how many of the community contributers got into FESCo.
But In fact that was was I tried after I left FESCo -- do things for
Fedora without being in FESCo. But it failed when for me. The longs
story short: some FESCo members didn't much participate in the public
discussions I started before handing in a proposal for voting to FESCo;
but when it came to FESCO voting those FESCo members suddenly complained
about some details; so I got back to the drawing board, started another
public discussion and handled in a improved proposal; then different
complains from other members showed up in the next FESCo meeting -- once
again they had not been raised beforehand in the public discussions on
the list; sometimes i even ran into such a loop a four times iirc. That
happened with more than one proposal and was very frustrating and of
course took weeks.
So I said: No thanks, in that case I leave all the work to FESCo.
Being event driven means that someone cares enough
about the issue to work on it outside of FESCo.
There are enough people that care and will work on things if you let
them without frustrating them (see above).
But it does change the
role of FESCo from "movers and shakers" to "arbitrators and judges".
[snip a more detailed description]
It's a mix and that's what is needed, thus there is no chose between
"a"
or "b" here. But IMHO the mix was a bit different in the Extras days and
a lot more "arbitrators and judges" then it is now.
In fact I wondering know how much/in which areas we really need
"arbitrators and judges" at all. A lot of good things happen if you just
let people do something without writing down to many rules. And we IMHO
have way to many these days.
Cu
knurd
8:33 a.m.
On Sat, 2008-04-26 at 11:42 +0200, Thorsten Leemhuis wrote:
On 26.04.2008 11:02, Michael Schwendt wrote:
>
> In the past, somebody from the old FESCO would have looked into it and
> would have tried to talk to you and the people you have problems with.
> Nowadays, there should also be somebody in the Fedora community or in
> Fedora leadership with interest in keeping people happy and
> cooperative.
Why can't FESCo handle that instead of discussing Fetures over and over?
That how it afaics was supposed to be, as everyone wanted to keep FESCo
when the merge happened because most people back then liked the work
FESCO did (it IMHO could have been a lot better, but that's a different
issue).
FESCo does handle these disputes (like we have in the past), when we are
actually made aware that there is a problem. As far as I'm aware no one
in FESCo was ever contacted.
Later,
/B
--
Brian Pepple <bpepple(a)fedoraproject.org>
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/BrianPepple
gpg --keyserver pgp.mit.edu --recv-keys 810CC15E
BD5E 6F9E 8688 E668 8F5B CBDE 326A E936 810C C15E
10:54 a.m.
>>>> "MS" == Michael Schwendt
<mschwendt(a)gmail.com> writes:
MS> In the past, somebody from the old FESCO would have looked into it
MS> and would have tried to talk to you and the people you have
MS> problems with.
I don't quite understand the implication that the current FESCo
wouldn't do the same, if the issue was somehow brought to its
attention. It has resolved issues similar to this in the relatively
recent past, after all. I personally had not known that there was an
issue until seeing Alain's message.
- J<
11:06 a.m.
On 26 Apr 2008 10:54:51 -0500, Jason L Tibbitts III wrote:
>>>>> "MS" == Michael Schwendt writes:
MS> In the past, somebody from the old FESCO would have looked into it
MS> and would have tried to talk to you and the people you have
MS> problems with.
I don't quite understand the implication that the current FESCo
wouldn't do the same,
There is no such implication.
if the issue was somehow brought to its
attention. It has resolved issues similar to this in the relatively
recent past, after all. I personally had not known that there was an
issue until seeing Alain's message.
- J<
1:17 p.m.
>>>> "MS" == Michael Schwendt
<mschwendt(a)gmail.com> writes:
MS> There is no such implication.
My apologies. Perhaps it's just the language barrier. FYI, when you
use the phrase "in the past", many English speakers will read an
implication that the behavior has changed. The same goes for phrases
like "until now", which I believe have quite different connotations on
other languages.
Sorry for lecturing, but I figured you might want to understand how I
read your message.
- J<
3:27 p.m.
On 26 Apr 2008 13:17:11 -0500, Jason L Tibbitts III wrote:
>>>>> "MS" == Michael Schwendt
<mschwendt(a)gmail.com> writes:
MS> There is no such implication.
My apologies. Perhaps it's just the language barrier. FYI, when you
use the phrase "in the past", many English speakers will read an
implication that the behavior has changed.
Okay. Reading too much between the lines/words can change the meaning. I
understand that one can interpret a lot into it. "Do you know the shortest
way to Tower Bridge?" -- "[When I was in England] In the past, I would
have taken a cab. *But* nowadays it's faster to take a bus." Without
the "But..." sentence, what would the first sentence imply?
There are other phrases that are much more explicit, ranging from
"formerly" and "previously" to the very clear: "FESCo _used to_
do
conflict resolving". I would have chosen such a phrase if I knew that
things are different nowadays.
What I wanted to point out with the initial comment is that the old FESCO,
which I was more familiar with, would have looked into such issues. There
is only a different implication, and that is that someone in the committee
either gets informed about the issues or notices a discussion on one of
the prominent communication channels. Hence my question whether the
problems "have been discussed elsewhere before" (i.e. not just in this
thread).
The same goes for phrases
like "until now", which I believe have quite different connotations on
other languages.
"Until now" is an explicit comparison of past and present, because it
refers to a time-span that ends "now". Something during that time now is
different. "In the past" or "in former times" refers to an
imprecise/unspecific period of time somewhere in history.
Sorry for lecturing, but I figured you might want to understand how
I
read your message.
Never mind. I don't mind corrections/hints at all.
--
Fedora release 8 (Werewolf) - Linux 2.6.23.15-137.fc8
loadavg: 1.63 1.74 1.81
3:50 p.m.
On Sat, Apr 26, 2008 at 10:27:27PM +0200, Michael Schwendt wrote:
way to Tower Bridge?" -- "[When I was in England] In the
past, I would
have taken a cab. *But* nowadays it's faster to take a bus." Without
the "But..." sentence, what would the first sentence imply?
It may imply someone familiar with a formal "correct" usage of the language.
"But" links phrases so cannot (in normal usage) correctly start a sentence -
not that anyone actually cares about this rule nowdays ;)
Alan (pedant)
3:35 p.m.
Le samedi 26 avril 2008, Michael Schwendt a écrit :
On Sat, 26 Apr 2008 00:11:33 +0200, Alain PORTAL wrote:
> Hi,
>
> As I get too many conflicts, first with the french translation team six
> month ago, second with some Redhat people, today, with a big head (as
> several people in the french translation team), I make the decision to
> definitevely leave the Fedora Extras Team.
Alain, can't these issues with people be fixed instead?
Unfortunately, I don't think.
In the past, somebody from the old FESCO would have looked into it
and
would have tried to talk to you and the people you have problems with.
Nowadays, there should also be somebody in the Fedora community or in
Fedora leadership with interest in keeping people happy and
cooperative. Have you discussed your problems elsewhere before?
No. Unfortunately, my english is to poor to have an intensive discussion to
explain my anger and all blames I can do to several people.
But you can get a little idea with these bugs:
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=139695
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=197353
have a look in the man-pages-fr.spec file to see how often this package is
update. In addition, I can tell you this package really need a review...
A one year old bug, easy to fix
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=238070
And the one that convinced me to get out
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=443634
Michael, thank you for all the help you gave me during these last years to
package some programs.
Yours sincerely,
Alain
--
Les pages de manuel Linux en français
http://manpagesfr.free.fr/
6:02 p.m.
On Sat, 26 Apr 2008 22:35:37 +0200
alain.portal(a)free.fr (Alain PORTAL) wrote:
Le samedi 26 avril 2008, Michael Schwendt a écrit :
> On Sat, 26 Apr 2008 00:11:33 +0200, Alain PORTAL wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > As I get too many conflicts, first with the french translation
> > team six month ago, second with some Redhat people, today, with a
> > big head (as several people in the french translation team), I
> > make the decision to definitevely leave the Fedora Extras Team.
>
> Alain, can't these issues with people be fixed instead?
Unfortunately, I don't think.
Well, we can try... and if not, at least we could perhaps learn from it
and how to make things like this not happen again.
No. Unfortunately, my english is to poor to have an intensive
discussion to explain my anger and all blames I can do to several
people. But you can get a little idea with these bugs:
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=139695
Yeah, I don't know what to say there. The maintainer clearly didn't
answer or do anything with the bug. ;(
Sadly, I do see what happened here...
The bug never seemed to block any of the review blockers bugs back when
extras reviews were doing that. So, it would never have appeared on
lists of packages to review, etc. :( Also, it shows as assigned, so
anyone who did see it would have assumed it was under review and left
it alone. Was it created assigned to notting? Did you use the template
on the new package review page on the wiki? or just manually created it?
have a look in the man-pages-fr.spec file to see how often this
package is update. In addition, I can tell you this package really
need a review...
A one year old bug, easy to fix
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=238070
Yeah. ;( No response from maintainer...
And the one that convinced me to get out
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=443634
It's been reopened. I think it was closed in error, and the people
involved realize that now.
So, I my thoughts on this:
- We need to make sure and improve review process so reviews don't get
lost like that. I think a lot of improvement has been made since the
extras days however, since we have the fedora-review flag now, your
review flag would probably have had someone at least comment that it
was assigned, but didn't seem to be under review.
- We need to work harder to spot where maintainers need assistance and
are not answering their bugs. Triage folks may be able to help there.
- We need to work harder to identify easyfix bugs and get a group of
people able to go in and just fix them.
- Finally (and just speaking for myself), I would like to stress that I
am happy to listen to concerns or problems and try and get solutions to
happen. At every FESCo irc meeting there is a 'free discussion' period
at the end. On every FESCo scheduling post there is a chance to reply
to the list and bring up issues. Please, let us know where and when
there are problems so we can try and find some solution.
kevin
5:07 a.m.
On Sat, Apr 26, 2008 at 05:02:10PM -0600, Kevin Fenzi wrote:
> https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=139695
> https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=238070
Yeah. ;( No response from maintainer...
- We need to work harder to spot where maintainers need assistance and
are not answering their bugs. Triage folks may be able to help there.
The last triaging was, in my opinion, a step in the other direction.
Indeed, some bugs that were lacking reporter action were closed which is
right. But bugs that were lacking packager action were closed too, which
is bad. Instead it should have been investigated why the packager didn't
fix the bug if one would have wanted to know which packager needed
assistance and didn't answered their bugs.
- We need to work harder to identify easyfix bugs and get a group of
people able to go in and just fix them.
It is right for easyfix bugs that a packager agreed to have fixed, but
it won't help for easyfix when fix is already proposed by the reporter
(or help is already proposed) and packager is silent. Reporter can ping
himself, no need for a group of people to do this.
- Finally (and just speaking for myself), I would like to stress that
I
am happy to listen to concerns or problems and try and get solutions to
happen. At every FESCo irc meeting there is a 'free discussion' period
at the end. On every FESCo scheduling post there is a chance to reply
to the list and bring up issues. Please, let us know where and when
there are problems so we can try and find some solution.
I have reported these issues already at this exact place in february:
http://www.redhat.com/archives/rhl-devel-list/2008-February/msg00355.html
--
Pat
2:17 a.m.
But you can get a little idea with these bugs:
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=139695
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=197353
have a look in the man-pages-fr.spec file to see how often this package is
update. In addition, I can tell you this package really need a review...
I wasn't CC in package review and the second bug was closed before I've
maintained man-pages-fr. If you asked me about them, I would fix them.
Also you could (co-)maintain this package (or everyone else) in Fedora.
--
Marcela Mašláňová
BaseOS team Brno
1:03 p.m.
On Sat, 26 Apr 2008 22:35:37 +0200
Alain PORTAL <alain.portal(a)free.fr> wrote:
And the one that convinced me to get out
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=443634
What happened with this bug is that, since it appeared that
NetworkManager was incorrectly reporting no network connection, I
reassigned it to Dan Williams to take a look at it. He points out in
comment #9 that this is by design, since the connection in question
wasn't managed by NetworkManager. He then closed the bug, since it
wasn't a NetworkManager bug. However, as you can see in subsequent
comments, I've reopened the bug and reassigned it to myself. In
hindsight, I probably should've used the 'NEEDINFO' state instead of
reassigning the bug - then Dan wouldn't have closed it when he pointed
out that it was not a NetworkManager bug.
We'll probably take this bug and add another check to PackageKit if the
NetworkManager test fails. I can't speak to the other frustrating
experiences you've had, but in this case, I'm sorry for the confusion
and apparent disregard for your issue. I'd like to point out that the
problem was fixed in a matter of hours, and we're still looking into
fixing the bug.
-RN
--
Robin Norwood
Red Hat, Inc.
"The Sage does nothing, yet nothing remains undone."
-Lao Tzu, Te Tao Ching
1:32 a.m.
Le Monday 28 April 2008 20:03:41 Robin Norwood, vous avez écrit :
On Sat, 26 Apr 2008 22:35:37 +0200
Alain PORTAL <alain.portal(a)free.fr> wrote:
> And the one that convinced me to get out
> https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=443634
What happened with this bug is that, since it appeared that
NetworkManager was incorrectly reporting no network connection, I
reassigned it to Dan Williams to take a look at it. He points out in
comment #9 that this is by design, since the connection in question
wasn't managed by NetworkManager. He then closed the bug, since it
wasn't a NetworkManager bug.
This is what I didn't accept.
However, as you can see in subsequent
comments, I've reopened the bug and reassigned it to myself.
Yes, thanks.
In
hindsight, I probably should've used the 'NEEDINFO' state instead of
reassigning the bug - then Dan wouldn't have closed it when he pointed
out that it was not a NetworkManager bug.
We'll probably take this bug and add another check to PackageKit if the
NetworkManager test fails. I can't speak to the other frustrating
experiences you've had, but in this case, I'm sorry for the confusion
and apparent disregard for your issue. I'd like to point out that the
problem was fixed in a matter of hours, and we're still looking into
fixing the bug.
Even if I said nothing since friday, I don't forget my report.
Alain
--
La version française des pages de manuel Linux
http://manpagesfr.free.fr
4:53 a.m.
On Sat, Apr 26, 2008 at 12:11:33AM +0200, Alain PORTAL wrote:
Hi,
As I get too many conflicts, first with the french translation team six month
ago, second with some Redhat people, today, with a big head (as several
people in the french translation team), I make the decision to definitevely
leave the Fedora Extras Team.
That's sad. I also want to leave sporadically when something pisses me off
in fedora, but sofar I'm still here... As other said, couldn't this be
solved by somebody from FESCo or the like (if I remember well FESCo also
takes care of translation teams).
- fcron [1]
I can take this one. I thought I was already in the package databese,
but it seems not, so I did it. But I'd prefer to be co-maintainer.
Also it should ceretainly be considered as a replacement for
cronie+anacron, if I remember I will try to push it oncec again for F10.
- tetex-euro-font
I don't remember precisely, but isn't this in texlive?
--
Pat
2:35 p.m.
> - fcron [1]
I can take this one. I thought I was already in the package databese,
but it seems not, so I did it. But I'd prefer to be co-maintainer.
You probably made the confusion because you helped me to introduced it in
Fedora Extras by reviewing it.
Also it should ceretainly be considered as a replacement for
cronie+anacron, if I remember I will try to push it oncec again for F10.
It would be a good idea as it is a great tool.
I never tried to push it in "Fedora Core" because of my poor english, I never
could have a long discussion to convince the Fedora team to accept it as a
replacement of Vixie craon and anacron.
I hope you'll succeed
> - tetex-euro-font
I don't remember precisely, but isn't this in texlive?
No.
http://tug.ctan.org/cgi-bin/ctanPackageInformation.py?id=eurofont
Regards,
Alain
--
Les pages de manuel Linux en français
http://manpagesfr.free.fr/
4:58 p.m.
On Sat, Apr 26, 2008 at 09:35:31PM +0200, Alain PORTAL wrote:
You probably made the confusion because you helped me to introduced it in
Fedora Extras by reviewing it.
And I also worked with upstream to improve autoconf scripts/makefiles,
and now and then argue about having it as default cron...
> > - tetex-euro-font
>
> I don't remember precisely, but isn't this in texlive?
No.
http://tug.ctan.org/cgi-bin/ctanPackageInformation.py?id=eurofont
In fact it seems to be in texlive, but not in fedora texilve. If nobody
takes it the best would certainly be to have it as part of texlive.
--
Pat
7:49 a.m.
On Sat, 2008-04-26 at 00:11 +0200, Alain PORTAL wrote:
Hi,
As I get too many conflicts, first with the french translation team six month
ago, second with some Redhat people, today, with a big head (as several
people in the french translation team), I make the decision to definitevely
leave the Fedora Extras Team.
So, as I merged some useful software in Fedora, I hope somebody would continue
on them.
Most of them are electronics relative.
Can you email the issues you're having to
fedora-extras-steering(a)redhat.com please? Perhaps we can look them over
and find an amicable way to solve them for everyone involved.
josh
4:26 p.m.
Le samedi 26 avril 2008, Josh Boyer a écrit :
On Sat, 2008-04-26 at 00:11 +0200, Alain PORTAL wrote:
> Hi,
>
> As I get too many conflicts, first with the french translation team six
> month ago, second with some Redhat people, today, with a big head (as
> several people in the french translation team), I make the decision to
> definitevely leave the Fedora Extras Team.
> So, as I merged some useful software in Fedora, I hope somebody would
> continue on them.
> Most of them are electronics relative.
Can you email the issues you're having to
fedora-extras-steering(a)redhat.com please? Perhaps we can look them over
and find an amicable way to solve them for everyone involved.
josh
I don't think there is some solution.
But I'll try to explain some of the problems.
reagrds,
-- Alain
Les pages de manuel Linux en français
http://manpagesfr.free.fr/
5:23 p.m.
On Sat, Apr 26, 2008 at 07:49:51AM -0500, Josh Boyer wrote:
Can you email the issues you're having to
fedora-extras-steering(a)redhat.com please? Perhaps we can look them over
and find an amicable way to solve them for everyone involved.
Looking at te bug reports Alain posted in another mail, there seems to
be 2 issues. One is that he has proposed patches for packaging issues
for years without being heard. The second is, in my opinion, a less
problematic issue of a bug being closed to rapidly.
The first one is, in my opinion, a contributor killer issue and I have
been reporting it more than once. It is not acceptable to have packagers
not handling rapidly bugs where submitter proposes patches, or volunteer
to take care of the issue. FESCo should really come up with a guideline
or a solution for such issues, which is not a case-by-case decision.
It is especially frustrating when a contributor has done some work and
still the package maintainer doesn't seems to care at all about it.
--
Pat
6:11 p.m.
On Sun, 2008-04-27 at 00:23 +0200, Patrice Dumas wrote:
The first one is, in my opinion, a contributor killer issue and I
have
been reporting it more than once. It is not acceptable to have packagers
not handling rapidly bugs where submitter proposes patches, or volunteer
to take care of the issue. FESCo should really come up with a guideline
or a solution for such issues, which is not a case-by-case decision.
It is especially frustrating when a contributor has done some work and
still the package maintainer doesn't seems to care at all about it.
Perhaps the AWOL maintainer policy could be adapted/extended into a
"non-responsive" maintainer policy. Not caring about a package is not a
mark against the maintainer, but allowing it to bitrot is.
--
Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams <ivazqueznet(a)gmail.com>
PLEASE don't CC me; I'm already subscribed
6:14 p.m.
On Sat, Apr 26, 2008 at 07:11:33PM -0400, Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams wrote:
Perhaps the AWOL maintainer policy could be adapted/extended into a
"non-responsive" maintainer policy. Not caring about a package is not a
mark against the maintainer, but allowing it to bitrot is.
I don't think that the AWOL maintainer policy should be extended to cope
with these cases, since it seems to me to be a distinct case. But it
could certainly be adapted to have a procedure for forced
co-maintainership or forced orphaning when a packager doesn't handle the
easy to fix/proposed solution bugs in a given time.
--
Pat
7:52 p.m.
On Sun, 2008-04-27 at 00:23 +0200, Patrice Dumas wrote:
On Sat, Apr 26, 2008 at 07:49:51AM -0500, Josh Boyer wrote:
>
> Can you email the issues you're having to
> fedora-extras-steering(a)redhat.com please? Perhaps we can look them over
> and find an amicable way to solve them for everyone involved.
Looking at te bug reports Alain posted in another mail, there seems to
be 2 issues. One is that he has proposed patches for packaging issues
for years without being heard. The second is, in my opinion, a less
problematic issue of a bug being closed to rapidly.
The first one is, in my opinion, a contributor killer issue and I have
been reporting it more than once. It is not acceptable to have packagers
not handling rapidly bugs where submitter proposes patches, or volunteer
to take care of the issue. FESCo should really come up with a guideline
or a solution for such issues, which is not a case-by-case decision.
Why? Grr! It does not take someone from FESCo to draft such a thing.
Anyone, yes ANYONE, can draft something and ask FESCo to ratify it.
Now, frankly I'm not sure something outside of the existing AWOL
procedure is needed at all.
It is especially frustrating when a contributor has done some work
and
still the package maintainer doesn't seems to care at all about it.
I agree. Open CVS ACLs and co-maintainers _should_ help lessen the
occurrence of this. However, that is still up to the primary maintainer
to decide, and we have to take exceptions as they come.
josh
3:13 a.m.
On Sat, Apr 26, 2008 at 07:52:19PM -0500, Josh Boyer wrote:
Why? Grr! It does not take someone from FESCo to draft such a thing.
Anyone, yes ANYONE, can draft something and ask FESCo to ratify it.
Indeed, but nobody has come with something now, so I think it would be
nice to have FESCo propose something.
Now, frankly I'm not sure something outside of the existing AWOL
procedure is needed at all.
I am sure of the contrary. AWOL is for people who are AWOL. Here we are
talking about maintainers who are not AWOL but still don't act. It is
a very different situation. If somebody AWOL has his packages forcefully
orphaned there is no problem (it is even right...), while for a maintainer
not AWOL, it may be considered to be rude.
I agree. Open CVS ACLs and co-maintainers _should_ help lessen the
occurrence of this. However, that is still up to the primary maintainer
to decide, and we have to take exceptions as they come.
No, open CVS ACLs and co-maintainers don't help in that case. Well, it
helps implementing the fix, but it isn't the issue here. Here we just
want that the maintainer says 'ok, you seem to be interested, be
co-maintainer, implement what you propose I'll check and rebuild'. Or
'Ok, propose a patch'. Or 'This seems to be an easy fix, but there are
some issues you are missing, still I don't have currently the time to
explain, I'll come back as time permit'.
--
Pat
4:18 a.m.
On Sun, 27 Apr 2008 10:13:11 +0200, Patrice Dumas wrote:
On Sat, Apr 26, 2008 at 07:52:19PM -0500, Josh Boyer wrote:
>
> Why? Grr! It does not take someone from FESCo to draft such a thing.
> Anyone, yes ANYONE, can draft something and ask FESCo to ratify it.
Indeed, but nobody has come with something now, so I think it would be
nice to have FESCo propose something.
> Now, frankly I'm not sure something outside of the existing AWOL
> procedure is needed at all.
I am sure of the contrary. AWOL is for people who are AWOL. Here we are
talking about maintainers who are not AWOL but still don't act. It is
a very different situation. If somebody AWOL has his packages forcefully
orphaned there is no problem (it is even right...), while for a maintainer
not AWOL, it may be considered to be rude.
Here the maintainer would end the AWOL procedure with a comment in
bugzilla, but afterwards might still not take proper action to fix the bug
(and apply a patch or version upgrade).
A different procedure is needed, in particular for the hard problems where
months pass by without progress. Somebody to rule how to proceed. Somebody
with the decision-power to open up the cvs acls for a package or to
over-rule the package owner if necessary. Else the package collection
cannot be called not community-driven in such areas.
> I agree. Open CVS ACLs and co-maintainers _should_ help lessen
the
> occurrence of this. However, that is still up to the primary maintainer
> to decide, and we have to take exceptions as they come.
No, open CVS ACLs and co-maintainers don't help in that case. Well, it
helps implementing the fix, but it isn't the issue here. Here we just
want that the maintainer says 'ok, you seem to be interested, be
co-maintainer, implement what you propose I'll check and rebuild'. Or
'Ok, propose a patch'. Or 'This seems to be an easy fix, but there are
some issues you are missing, still I don't have currently the time to
explain, I'll come back as time permit'.
The last excuse I find questionable. Lack of time is a primary reason to
search for co-maintainers. Else it becomes a hindrance. If specific issues
are known, they can be summed up (briefly!) to give the contributors and
potential co-maintainers some input to think about. Consider it
home-work. Such brief feedback need not be ultimately convincing and may
result in a series of comments over a longer period of time.
--
Fedora release 8 (Werewolf) - Linux 2.6.23.15-137.fc8
loadavg: 1.10 1.18 1.04
4:28 a.m.
Patrice Dumas wrote:
On Sat, Apr 26, 2008 at 07:49:51AM -0500, Josh Boyer wrote:
> Can you email the issues you're having to
> fedora-extras-steering(a)redhat.com please? Perhaps we can look them over
> and find an amicable way to solve them for everyone involved.
Looking at te bug reports Alain posted in another mail, there seems to
be 2 issues. One is that he has proposed patches for packaging issues
for years without being heard. The second is, in my opinion, a less
problematic issue of a bug being closed to rapidly.
The first one is, in my opinion, a contributor killer issue and I have
been reporting it more than once. It is not acceptable to have packagers
not handling rapidly bugs where submitter proposes patches, or volunteer
to take care of the issue. FESCo should really come up with a guideline
or a solution for such issues, which is not a case-by-case decision.
It is especially frustrating when a contributor has done some work and
still the package maintainer doesn't seems to care at all about it.
+1
I'm so fed up with this (people not responding to trivial to fix bugs / bugs
with patches attached) that I _regulary_ put a comment like this in bugzilla:
Can you please fix this, this blocks X other bugs. I'm sorry todo this, but
consider this your first ping in the light of the NonResponsiveMaintainers policy:
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/PackageMaintainers/Policy/NonResponsiveMain...
Which sometimes gets people attention and sometimes not. I guess the
NonResponsiveMaintainers policy is already an answer to this, which is why I
use it, but I wonder if it is _the_ answer.
Regards,
Hans
4:41 a.m.
On Sun, 27 Apr 2008 11:28:08 +0200, Hans de Goede wrote:
I'm so fed up with this (people not responding to trivial to fix
bugs / bugs
with patches attached) that I _regulary_ put a comment like this in bugzilla:
Can you please fix this, this blocks X other bugs. I'm sorry todo this, but
consider this your first ping in the light of the NonResponsiveMaintainers policy:
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/PackageMaintainers/Policy/NonResponsiveMain...
Which sometimes gets people attention and sometimes not. I guess the
NonResponsiveMaintainers policy is already an answer to this, which is why I
use it, but I wonder if it is _the_ answer.
It's the AWOL procedure, and it assumes that the maintainer doesn't
respond.
It doesn't cover the case, where a maintainer shows up from time to time,
but still doesn't take the requested/recommended action (such as applying
a patch or upgrading to a new upstream release).
And it boils down to FESCo deciding on how to proceed, which is exactly
what is needed in the non-AWOL cases, too.
--
Fedora release 8 (Werewolf) - Linux 2.6.23.15-137.fc8
loadavg: 1.05 1.20 1.37
4:51 a.m.
Michael Schwendt wrote:
On Sun, 27 Apr 2008 11:28:08 +0200, Hans de Goede wrote:
> I'm so fed up with this (people not responding to trivial to fix bugs / bugs
> with patches attached) that I _regulary_ put a comment like this in bugzilla:
>
> Can you please fix this, this blocks X other bugs. I'm sorry todo this, but
> consider this your first ping in the light of the NonResponsiveMaintainers policy:
> http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/PackageMaintainers/Policy/NonResponsiveMain...
>
> Which sometimes gets people attention and sometimes not. I guess the
> NonResponsiveMaintainers policy is already an answer to this, which is why I
> use it, but I wonder if it is _the_ answer.
It's the AWOL procedure, and it assumes that the maintainer doesn't
respond.
True, but ...
It doesn't cover the case, where a maintainer shows up from time
to time,
but still doesn't take the requested/recommended action (such as applying
a patch or upgrading to a new upstream release).
Well sofar no-one has been so naughty / abusive as to just put a pong comment
in BZ and say, see I responded happy now? That would also be rather ill advised
as I can guarantee I would cry wolf very loudly in public, resulting in a
public grilling.
And it boils down to FESCo deciding on how to proceed, which is
exactly
what is needed in the non-AWOL cases, too.
Not necessarily in some cases it helps to wake people up, atleast long enough
to open the ACL's for me, which although still is not good maintainership, but
often is all that I need.
Which makes me think that as a possible solution to this, I would like to see:
1) Other rules about ACL's, currently lots of former core packages have
inherited there ACL settings from core, but why are so many packages closed to
cvs-extras? I would really like to see an ACL guideline which enforces open
ACL's unless the maintainer asks permission to close them to FESco.
Suggestion, the security people make a list of security sensitive packages,
those get to keep their current ACL's the rest is opened up to cvsextras,
unless a request is made to FESco before date <date>, then a list can be given
to rel-eng / CVS-admin's, with do not open up these packages and please open up
all others, which then could be run as a one time batch job to remove all those
ancient no cvsextras access flags from a long time ago.
2) Some kind of guidelines document, where I really mean guidelines, and not
rules as most of our current guidelines are, for when its ok to touch other
people's packages without prior communication, and when and how much prior
communication is needed.
Regards,
Hans
5:13 a.m.
On Sun, Apr 27, 2008 at 11:28:08AM +0200, Hans de Goede wrote:
Can you please fix this, this blocks X other bugs. I'm sorry todo this, but
consider this your first ping in the light of the NonResponsiveMaintainers policy:
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/PackageMaintainers/Policy/NonResponsiveMain...
Which sometimes gets people attention and sometimes not. I guess the
NonResponsiveMaintainers policy is already an answer to this, which is why
I use it, but I wonder if it is _the_ answer.
No, it is not the answer, since the prerequisite is:
When a Fedora member notices that a maintainer isn't answering their
bugs, not answering rebuild requests, emails or the like, they need to
file a bug against the package in bugzilla asking for the maintainer to
respond. This bug should list the outstanding issues they need to
address.
and it is not the case here.
Agreed the problem is similar, but, in my opinion, different. As I told
in another mail, here we want to be able to force maintainers, while the
NonResponsiveMaintainers policy is here to detect missing maintainer who
will never need to be forced since they are missing.
--
Pat
5:02 a.m.
Le dimanche 27 avril 2008 à 00:23 +0200, Patrice Dumas a écrit :
It is especially frustrating when a contributor has done some work and
still the package maintainer doesn't seems to care at all about it.
In this particular case Alain is also the upstream, and a good enough
upstream he's been at it for years and no one suggested to replace it.
So the screwup is even worse. We could replace a contributor, we can not
replace an upstream we've angered for no good reason.
--
Nicolas Mailhot
5:51 a.m.
Le samedi 26 avril 2008, Josh Boyer a écrit :
Can you email the issues you're having to
fedora-extras-steering(a)redhat.com please? Perhaps we can look them over
and find an amicable way to solve them for everyone involved.
Finally, mailing to fedora-extras-steering(a)redhat.com became uneeded as the
major issue is now solved.
I want to particulary thank Tom "spot" Callaway, who is a great and stubborn
mediator, and Paul W. Frields, who both got involved to solve these issues.
I want also thank every body who mailed me.
Be sure Josh that if I get other similar problems, I'll mail to FESCO.
Regards,
Alain
--
Les pages de manuel Linux en français
http://manpagesfr.free.fr/
5:56 a.m.
Alain PORTAL wrote:
Le samedi 26 avril 2008, Josh Boyer a écrit :
> Can you email the issues you're having to
> fedora-extras-steering(a)redhat.com please? Perhaps we can look them over
> and find an amicable way to solve them for everyone involved.
Finally, mailing to fedora-extras-steering(a)redhat.com became uneeded as the
major issue is now solved.
I want to particulary thank Tom "spot" Callaway, who is a great and stubborn
mediator, and Paul W. Frields, who both got involved to solve these issues.
Glad to have you back :)
"From the diversity comes the power"
Regards,
Pierre
6:26 a.m.
Le jeudi 01 mai 2008, pingou a écrit :
Glad to have you back :)
Thanks pingou ;-)
Regards,
Alain
--
Les pages de manuel Linux en français
http://manpagesfr.free.fr/
7:08 a.m.
pingou wrote:
Alain PORTAL wrote:
> Le samedi 26 avril 2008, Josh Boyer a écrit :
>
>> Can you email the issues you're having to
>> fedora-extras-steering(a)redhat.com please? Perhaps we can look them over
>> and find an amicable way to solve them for everyone involved.
>
> Finally, mailing to fedora-extras-steering(a)redhat.com became uneeded
> as the major issue is now solved.
> I want to particulary thank Tom "spot" Callaway, who is a great and
> stubborn mediator, and Paul W. Frields, who both got involved to solve
> these issues.
Glad to have you back :)
+1
Regards,
Hans
7:58 a.m.
On Thu, 2008-05-01 at 12:51 +0200, Alain PORTAL wrote:
Le samedi 26 avril 2008, Josh Boyer a écrit :
> Can you email the issues you're having to
> fedora-extras-steering(a)redhat.com please? Perhaps we can look them over
> and find an amicable way to solve them for everyone involved.
Finally, mailing to fedora-extras-steering(a)redhat.com became uneeded as the
major issue is now solved.
I want to particulary thank Tom "spot" Callaway, who is a great and stubborn
mediator, and Paul W. Frields, who both got involved to solve these issues.
I want also thank every body who mailed me.
Excellent news.
Be sure Josh that if I get other similar problems, I'll mail to
FESCO.
Great! Fortunately in this case, it didn't even take actual FESCo
involvement to come to a resolution. I particularly like it when
members of the community are able to help one another through situations
like this.
(Yes, I know spot is in FESCo, but he acted as any other contributor
would have anyway).
josh
5847
days inactive
5853
days old
59 comments
24 participants
participants (24)
-
Alain PORTAL -
Alain PORTAL -
Alan Cox -
Brian Pepple -
David Nielsen -
Denis Leroy -
Hans de Goede -
Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams -
Jason L Tibbitts III -
Jesse Keating -
Josh Boyer -
Kevin Fenzi -
Kevin Kofler -
Marcela Mašláňová -
Matej Cepl -
Michael Schwendt -
Nicolas Mailhot -
Patrice Dumas -
Pierre-Yves Chibon -
Robin Norwood -
Stephen John Smoogen -
Thorsten Leemhuis -
Toshio Kuratomi -
Trond Danielsen