FESCo wants to ban direct stable pushes in Bodhi (urgent call for feedback)

[Orcan Ogetbil]

On Fri, Feb 26, 2010 at 9:59 AM, Kevin Kofler wrote:
> Orcan Ogetbil wrote:
>> Another annoying issue is updates with no explanations. There is a
>> "Notes" field in bodhi that many people just ignore for an unknown
>> reason. Any update with less than a specified number of characters
>> (~40) in the Notes should also be banned.
>
> That's a completely unrelated issue!
>

Somewhat unrelated? Yes. Completely unrelated? No.

Both issues are regarding pushing updates. So they are related. It is
not like comparing  a wooden table to walking on the street with
glasses.

> I actually sorta agree with you on this point (though enforcing 40 chars
> minimum is unlikely to help, it'll just lead to folks filling in crap like
> "update foo to the latest upstream version", we're already seeing useless
> "information" like that), but this has absolutely nothing to do with direct
> stable pushes.
>

The reason I brought it up is that this is the second most annoying
issue with our updates, where the first is pushing packages directly
to stable.

>> I can't see a reason to make exceptions.
>
> What about the many valid reasons that have been brought up? E.g. if a
> package is destroying people's hardware, wouldn't you want the fix to go out
> BEFORE your hardware is dead?
>

A package destroying people's hardware shouldn't be there in the first
place, because it should have stayed in testing for an extended period
of time. Thus this is not a valid reason, as the other ones that were
brought up were not.

>> If people used the testing repo appropriately, things would actually get
>> tested.
>
> I don't think it's the maintainers' fault that testing is insufficient, but
> rather that there are just not enough testers.
>

But it is maintainer's fault to push an update to stable that would
*possibly* destroy people's hardware.

>> I wish there was a solution without some sort of banning, but apparently,
>> there is not.
>
> Policies? Banning only those folks who don't follow policies from direct
> stable pushes (or even from Bodhi entirely, or even all of Fedora)? Why
> punish those who work really hard to make things work for everyone and who
> will now have their perfectly fine and safe fixes delayed for purely
> bureaucratic reasons?
>

Standardization, my friend, helps you in many aspects of life.

>> Any change needs testing. Even one liners.
>
> I'm not convinced. Some changes are really trivial.
>
> And direct stable pushes are usually tested by at least one person before
> they're queued directly to stable anyway. For a one-line fix, that's usually
> more than enough (and when it's not, the maintainer knows why, e.g. if that
> one line enabled a 10000-line feature).
>

Indeed some changes are trivial. But if a trivial change is really
necessary, it could be done while the package is still in testing. If
you need one liner fix for an already tested package that has been in
stable for long time, then that fix is apparently not urgent.

Please don't skip the fact that fixes themselves might be broken too,
even the most trivial ones.

Orcan