[syslinux] Open thougts about the project governance & workflow

[Geert Stappers]

On Tue, Sep 01, 2015 at 05:58:14AM -0400, Gene Cumm via Syslinux wrote:
> On Tue, Sep 1, 2015 at 3:55 AM, Erwan Velu via Syslinux
> <syslinux op zytor.com> wrote:
> > Hi folks,
> >
> > I've been involved in Syslinux since 14 years and been almost off for many
> > years for multiple reasons. I'm currently trying to recover and while
> > observing the project with a little of distance I noticed the following :
> >
> > - project's activity is pretty low
> > - patches sent to the mailing list (ML) are not likely to be reviewed
> > - Integration workflow is pretty unclear
> > - release cycles are pretty long
> >
> > Please note that I'm not ranting against anyone. We are all working on our
> > free time and do our best.
> >
> > We started a discussion about that topic on the irc channel but I'd prefer
> > to push it to the ML to get feedbacks from others.
> >
> > From my perspective we are in this situation for the following reasons :
> > - we are lacking of people on the project (dev & qa)
> > - we are badly using people time
> > - the feeback loop between dev, users & qa is pretty broken leading to
> > frustation from everyone
> >
> > As a dev, here come the issue I have with the project
> > - I don't know who is able to take care of my patches
> > - I don't know when they will be reviewed & merged
> 
> I've been the sole one merging for the past few months.  I see a point
> here that I should probably be pointing towards a commit ID or commit
> mailing list message in the archive.  I should probably also
> acknowledge receipt of a patch in addition to tagging the message as a
> patch for review.
> 
> > As a user, I do think it's pretty hard to understand when a issue will be
> > fixed & released.
> >
> > As dev have very few time to work on Syslinux, I'd like to see the workflow
> > being more defined and more distributed to workaround the missing of peter.
> > He's very loaded so we have to help him. We cannot push the whole
> > responsability on him to take care of patches, merging, testing and release.
> 
> Some of this has been done but the biggest question remaining in my
> mind is solely around releases.
> 
> > I really wonder if we could make our workflow being less 90's like. I mean
> > sending patches to a ML and waiting for someone to take care of it and
> > finally forgetting it.
> >
> > Ady made a serious job tracking them for a while and then decided to stop
> > because it was too much energy for very few returns. Gene is also
> > maintaining a tree on his side but what is integrated or not is pretty hard
> > to track when working on the project from time to time.
> 
> I still maintain my personal repos on github and zytor and push to the
> now-official repo.cz repo.
> 
> > I'm wondering if using a github-like service couldn't be useful for us. I
> > mean having a place where we can see all the issues & pending pull-requests
> > (PR). I'm using that services all day long and that's pretty efficient. If
> > the PR associated to an issue is OK you can merge it instantly, if not just
> > asking for a rework to the dev.
> >
> > I know we have already a bugzilla but I don't find the integration with git
> > very "fluent".
> 
> Unless there's a missing piece that someone made that's out there, it's human.
> 
> > Anyway, I'm sending this email trying to get your thoughts about this and
> > trying to redefine the workflow & role of the current people on the project
> > (dev, qa, maintainer, ..).
> >
> > Sorry for such long email on the ML, please take it in the positive side of
> > it, we have to rework the team & roles to avoid the project dying by people
> > leaving.
> >
> > Erwan
> 
> 
> -Gene


It is good that we have these discussions. Thing I want to add is 'patchwork'


Groeten
Geert Stappers
-- 
Leven en laten leven