On Thu, Nov 14, 2013 at 11:38 AM, Ben de Groot <yng...@gentoo.org> wrote: > I was particularly hit by this as maintainer of freetype, see bugs > 455070 and 459352 for some of the mess that could have been avoided.
Looks like 455070 was the source of problems there (the other is just a tracker with the aftermath). The package had no maintainer at the time, only a herd (per cvs). There was a request in the bug for whether it was suitable to deploy to production. Somebody associated with the herd gave a thumbs-up, apparently (I can only say that based on your comment - I have no idea how that was communicated). Then something went wrong. Since it caused problems, it was masked. Those who run ~arch should be thanked for saving the stable users from potential breakage! I'm not sure what should have been done differently. If the package maintainer (in this case a herd) says that something is good to go, why would anybody assume that it wasn't? You suggested testing in an overlay 20 days earlier, but you weren't in any particularly privileged position at the time (you were presumably just another maintainer of the herd). I'm not pointing fingers here. This was apparently a miscommunication, and part of the cause was a failure to document that there was a primary maintainer of the package (something which was subsequently corrected). Michał did offer to just maintain the status quo on that package instead of migrating it, and apparently he thought he had the all-clear to migrate it anyway. Michał did add the multilib project as a co-maintainer, taking responsibility for dealing with the multilib-related issues long-term. In my mind this is the sort of things projects should do. I'm sure there were other issues, but issues will happen when projects make changes. That's just the way things roll around here. If Michał just committed a change to a package without conferring with the maintainer at all or giving significant notice, I'd feel differently. I think we just need to learn and move forward, and from the looks of things we have. Gentoo always has been a fairly "disruptive" distro, though it has settled down of late. I don't think we're erring on the side of breaking systems too often right now, though I'm always for preventing that as long as it doesn't require ossification. (Just a note - this is all based on what I could piece together from cvs and bugzilla. I'm sure those who were personally involved could contribute more detail. I'm not sure it is necessary that do so, but I'll gladly defer to those with firsthand knowledge.) >> In the end, stuff only >> gets done if people write code. Your power in any FOSS project really >> comes down to your ability to write code or convince others to write >> code on your behalf. > No, it's more about your ability to commit and get away with it. So, I'm 100% for what Donnie said and in general I tend to lean towards saying "thanks, but no thanks" when a heavy contributor is driving everybody nuts. However, the reality is that those who commit more also tend to be allowed to get away with committing more. That's just human nature - we all like our free toys and we're reluctant to take too much objection when we're slapped around a little by the guy who is giving us the free toys. There needs to be a balance, and from the sound of things Markos is looking to step in and adjust the balance if it gets out of line. Honestly, I just wish everybody would do what they can to make his job easier, and I say that without pointing my fingers in any direction. I think we have a really great thing going here... Rich
