Ceri Davies writes:
> What I'm trying to achieve is to, at the very least, get Alice up to
> a point where somebody might be interested in at least working with her
> on getting a correct patch out so that a potential sponsor (who, let's
> face it, have real jobs to do too) can be bothered to choose that bug to
> work on.
>
> Does anyone else agree that this might be a problem, and are they able
> to see a way out?
It's indeed a problem to have a bug assigned to someone who is not
going to produce a viable fix, and I think we're seeing that problem
occurring now.
Not producing a viable fix can occur for many reasons. You're citing
a particular though noteworthy case -- a poor-quality patch -- but
there are many others that happen in real life, including people who
start working on a problem but then get distracted elsewhere, or
instances where the bug becomes part of a bigger project, or those
times the submitter just falls under a bus.
Let's also take the whole "sponsor" question away, as that is a
temporary issue that's being fixed. The one problem I see there --
the "there's already a request on the table" problem -- is an
artifact, but it's not the underlying problem.
The underlying problem is that Alice isn't going to fix the problem.
It has to be up to Bob to take it away from Alice. If I were Bob, I'd
first send Alice a private message saying, "hey, it looks like you're
not working on 1243567, and I've got a good way to fix it; mind if I
take ownership?" The answer (in my experience) is almost always "go
ahead," and the problem's solved. Most submitters know when they're
either doing nothing or are completely under water.
If Alice doesn't respond or gives some unsatisfactory answer (in Bob's
eyes), I believe the escalation path ought to be the community group
responsible for the technology area. Bob should compose a message
there saying, "Alice {has proposed an unworkable solution for, doesn't
appear to be working on} this bug, and I have a better solution
documented $HERE. I request that the Core Contributors vote to
release this bug to me." In the role of directing the technology, I
think the community group should have the power to release the bug
from another's grip.
If the community group itself doesn't agree with Bob, he should
certainly do some soul-searching. If he still feels he's right and
the rest of the world is wrong, the OGB would be the natural next step
for such a conflict, but I'd hope that path would never be used, and
that it should almost never be successful.
--
James Carlson, Solaris Networking <james.d.carlson at sun.com>
Sun Microsystems / 35 Network Drive 71.232W Vox +1 781 442 2084
MS UBUR02-212 / Burlington MA 01803-2757 42.496N Fax +1 781 442 1677
