On Mon, 2009-09-14 at 08:23 -0400, Paul W. Frields wrote:
I wanted to suggest
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=518880
as a candidate for blocker status, because it's a regression in a
well-publicized feature. (The maintainers are already aware of the
problem and working on it, I'd just like to make sure it's not lost in
the shuffle.)
That criterion is worth considering generally for blocker status. But
maybe it needs some refinement?
We don't really have hard and fast criteria for blockers. This is for
two reasons: a) we're too lazy to write any, and b) it's really hard. b)
obviously has significant implications for a). ;)
less flippantly, it's almost impossible to quantify blocker-ness in
terms flexible enough to cover all cases, but rigid enough to be of any
actual use in objective evaluation (as opposed to just coming down to a
subjective judgment call, which is what we currently use).
We have a fairly solid definition for *Alpha* blockers - only 'high' or
'urgent' severity bugs in critical path components - but even that
requires occasional exceptions, and the higher standard required of Beta
and final releases makes it harder to define blocker-ness.
So, short story, right now it's a judgment call. I'd certainly judge
that this bug is a _final release_ blocker. Whether it's a beta blocker
is a trickier call. We'll make sure to cover it in the meeting on Friday
to see what everyone thinks.
The two main ways to propose something as a blocker: show up to the
meeting and raise it, or simply set it as one (as someone's done for
this bug already - it's been set as a final release blocker at present)
and it'll automatically get looked at during the meeting. If the
consensus at the meeting is that it isn't a blocker, it'll be dropped
(with an explanation).
--
Adam Williamson
Fedora QA Community Monkey
IRC: adamw | Fedora Talk: adamwill AT fedoraproject DOT org
http://www.happyassassin.net