Defining the damn 3.9 process! (was Re: SqueakFoundation money)

[goran at krampe.se]

Hi people!

=?ISO-8859-1?Q?st=E9phane_ducasse?= <ducasse at iam.unibe.ch> wrote:
> You are not facing the problems so this is easy to say.

Ehm... we are all in this community aren't we? And we are both on the
board. Sure, you are 3.9 team leader, and I am not - but I still think
we are all in this together.

And I stand by my words. Money is not the solution. But if it can help
us - fine.

> > Ok, so let me check what Teams we have:
> >
> > 	http://www.squeak.org/Community/Teams
> >
> > Aha! "v3.9" and "Packages" are the main teams for getting this process
> > defined. IIRC the Packages team stalled, but at least we adopted the
> > packages orientation that Impara use and we also at least got the
> > Steward idea rolling a bit. We now have 7 Stewards teams defined (see
> > above) and it is now very important that the v3.9 team defines how to
> > act with them and start working *with* us.
> 
> You see sometimes this kind of email pisses me off. I should be  
> tired.....
> so I breath slowly and continue to read....but as if we would not be  
> working
> with people. WHAT are you really implying?

I am implying that the 3.9 team hasn't made any visible steps to show us
(the Steward teams) how you want to work with us. I didn't mean to make
it sound "harsh" though - I was more trying to stress that it is
important to not forget that we now have Steward teams and to make sure
we start benefiting from that.

I am also implying that there is a culture of fixing things in the image
(since the dawn of time) instead of taking the time to funnel the fixes
to the upstream package maintainer. I am saying this primarily as the
maintainer of SM which has been around for some time and I have seen it
happen over and over. AFAIK there are several fixes to SM in the image
that have never been sent to me. Sure, I can pick them up there myself -
but the point is that people seem to take that for granted. Or they seem
to still think the image is the master, which it isn't - not for SM.

> > Looking at the v3.9 list it seems slow right now:
> >
> > 	http://discuss.squeakfoundation.org/cgi-bin/ezmlm-browse?list=v3dot9
> >
> > ...can we get some discussion *there* (and not on the board list or
> > private emails) please and get this process defined? Take this as a
> > STRONG hint to reply to this email on the 3.9 list and not on the  
> > board
> > list. :)
> 
> The traffic is the one that we can have.
> Who is harvesting? Me!
> PERIOD and right now we have been over intense tests to get traits in  
> an non
> image hack way.

I am talking about the Steward teams producing new revisions of their
packages and how the 3.9 team will work to pick that up and integrate
it. That was the whole plan IIRC.

And btw, even though we haven't been very active yet in the Network team
- you can't really know how much we are working. For example, today I
sat scavenging Mantis for Network stuff (and there is plenty to work
with), but you wouldn't know.

I also highly appreciate what you are doing - I just think you might be
forgetting or dropping the ball on the Stewards idea. I need you to
"drive" that process - because you are in charge of 3.9 - which is the
target for the Stewards teams. And by driving I mean showing how you
want us to work with you.

> > Now, my challenge to the v3.9 team is to concoct a process based on
> > this. As you can see above the Network team has decided to always work
> > with the latest published image from 3.9 and we will produce .mcz's -
> > both for our package and possible bundled with .mcz's for other  
> > packages
> > that need to be modified. And we decided that we decide together  
> > when to
> > push stuff to you guys - typically when we think we have "enough
> > goodness" bundled up - we don't want to push too often.
> 
> ok
> 
> > Now, *how* do we "feed" you guys? Do we throw them in your inbox *and*
> > send a corresponding mandatory email to the v3.9 list (seems
> > reasonable)?
> 
> Yes

Ok, good. Can we get this written down somewhere?

> > And if this is a good process - when you decide to muck
> > about in our package :) how do you handle *us*? We are *upstream*  
> > now -
> > so I really, really hope you realize that you must respect that (or  
> > else
> > the Steward idea falls apart from the start)
> 
> Why are you talking about respect?

I was referring to the fact that seemingly stuff has been happening in
say Network even after we formed the Stewards team for it. Sure, it
seems to be mainly UIManager stuff etc, but also some fixes from ac (?)
got in it seems. And yes, that was Cees doings :) I think, but it
doesn't matter - my point is that it wasn't pushed to us.

> For me this is simple we do not harvest anything that has a team and  
> we wait
> that the team push code that we need to integrate. We work until the  
> integration is working.

Good. Perfect. And I am sorry again for bad choice of words. Ok? :)

> > and that you feed your
> > proposed changes back to us so that we can review, integrate and feed
> > them back to you. Or something like that.
> 
> Yes

In fact, I could even be fine with you putting proposed changes directly
in the image, just as long as you send us an email for us to decide if
it is fine. Mostly it is probably fine, and if not we can always back
out. This might work faster - at least for things like the UI work Cees
did since it spans so many packages. If it is local fixes - then sending
us an MC is better. Or rather putting it somewhere in a repo that we can
pick up. An "outbox". :)
 
> > Ok, now you get an idea of what I would like the definition to  
> > include.
> 
> Definition of what?

Of what we are describing here. The process for how we work together on
3.9 (the 3.9 team + the Stewards teams).
 
> > In short - the rules for the flow here.
> >
> > regards, Göran
> >
> > PS. I am confident we can do this, so let's get it done.
> 
> Me too. 

:) And Stef - sorry if my words came out harsh. Ok?

regards, Göran