Missing update announcements

[John Dennis]

On Thu, 2005-05-05 at 18:03 +0200, Bernd Bartmann wrote:
> Again several updates/erratas for FC3 appeared on the download mirrors
> but were never announced.

It's worthwhile to point out that the process for getting a new rpm
signed and pushed is entirely manual done via email requests. A
developer sends an email asking for the package to be pushed. It may
take between 1 hour and 2 days for the request to be honored. He cannot
generate the announcement until the sign/push occurs because the MD5
sums won't be correct until the package is signed. So it is entirely
possible for a package to get signed while the developer is gone and he
may not be able to generate the announcement until he returns. Because
of the manual nature of the process and the inherent delays it is
entirely possible for several days to transpire between a package making
an appearance and the announcement.

I'm not defending the process, but I trying to explain why it sometimes
seems like announcements are delayed. The process should be fixed, but
it is what it is :-(

> I've opened a bug for each missing
> announcement:

How long have you waited for the announcement? If its less than 2 days I
would give the developer a chance before opening a bug. I assume you
have some automated script that is detecting these missed announcements,
humans trying to juggle the process along with all the other things on
their plate can't compete with computers waiting to catch them.

-- 
John Dennis <jdennis at redhat.com>