On Fri, Dec 31, 2021 at 11:29 AM Konstantin Belousov <kostik...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Fri, Dec 31, 2021 at 01:08:25PM -0500, Ed Maste wrote: > > Some time ago I started a best practises doc for potentially > > disruptive src changes (and have received some feedback, including > > from folks on this thread). I'll paste it here for further discussion. > > --- > > This is the suggested process for introducing tool chain and other > > changes in the src tree that may cause significant disruption to > > ports. Some examples of potentially disruptive changes are: > > > > - major compiler updates > > - OpenSSL updates > > - adding a library or system call (such as memfd) that is already > > present on other systems > > - changing the semantics or APIs of existing libraries > > > > The goal of this document is not to be overly prescriptive, but to > > document a process that has produced good results in the past, avoid > > surprises among ports committers and maintainers, and clarify the > > expectation on port maintainers to collaborate on addressing fallout > > from the potentially disruptive change. The project gets the best > > results when everybody works together, in good faith, to solve > > problems with disruptive changes. > > > > Disruptive change process: > > > > 1. Request a ports exp-run with the desired change. This is used to > > determine the initial impact of the change. If the exp-run shows no > > impact or minimal impact the rest of the process may be skipped. > > > > 2. Verify that important packages build, and fix identified failures. > > Maintainers of important packages should be prepared to assist. > > Important (critical?) packages include: > > > > - pkg > > - binutils > > - gcc > > … (need to expand this list) > > > > 3. Post a Heads-Up email to at least the FreeBSD-current and > > FreeBSD-ports mailing lists with a proposed schedule. Where > > appropriate add other mailing lists, such as FreeBSD-toolchain. Allow > > at least three weeks between the Heads-Up email and the commit. > > > > 4. In the period between the Heads-Up email and the commit, developers > > proposing the change and maintainers of ports affected by the change > > work together to resolve any ports failures. > And what to do if developers are not 'collaborative'? For my case, there > was a silence from ports maintainers, even after > - a tool was proposed > - a request for feedback was issued > There's a timeout in ports. If the maintainer is unresponsive, you can proceed. There's some tweaking we can do to the timeouts, to be sure, but I've had several things time out and I was good to proceed with my changes. For base changes in ABI, maybe we need a faster expectation for feedback as well as allowing breakage when the timeout is reached and there aren't some compelling reasons not to proceed. > > > > 5. Request additional exp-runs as necessary (by adding a comment in > > the existing PR). > > > > 6. Commit may proceed once all important/critcal ports build, and either: > > > > - The deadline proposed in the Heads-Up email has been reached > > - There is a concensus that remaining failures are insignificant (for > > example, a small number of unmaintained leaf ports are the only > > outstanding failures) > > > > 7. Collaborate on fixing any outstanding issues (e.g. broken leaf ports) > > This is good wishes, at best. This assessment is backed by my experience > both with ino64, and with sched_get/setaffinity. Either source changes > are blocked indefinitely, or source committer is tasked with fixing all > broken ports. > It's never that absolute: I've made changes I knew would break ports that were deemed to be unsupported enough to just mark broken. But having a list of things that might be broken allowed me to work with portmgr to make this call. Warner
