-------------- Original message ---------------------- From: Ken Causey ken@kencausey.com
I'm wondering what the current status is of the harvesting process from the standpoint of the harvesters. I'm a little bit bothered by the most recent addition to 3.9alpha. Judging from the HTTP info 6667TallySupport-ab.cs went into the update stream on the 22nd or 23rd. For some reason this update has no preamble although the versions both in BFAV (closed by the Janitors) and with the issue (ID 1014) on Mantis have preambles. Also the issue on Mantis is still marked as new and there is no evidence that harvesting (beyond the review step) is occurring regarding this issue.
I realize we are in a highly transitional time here and that as a result there may be some confusion, but even if we don't have solid stated procedures I would hope that anyone modifying the update stream will make some effort to maintain a minimum level of documentation regarding the handling of each issue.
Admittedly I'm complaining here a little bit. But more than anything I would really like to have a bit better understanding of how updates will be entering the update stream in near future and what sort of changes, if any, those doing that work would like to see in the process.
I don't think you're complaining. I've wanted to see a process for allowing changes into the update stream since at least as far back as 2003. Some changes introduced back (and ever since) have fixed some issues but broken other functional code. I've been following the Network portion of the code mostly, and adding my two cents when changes don't appear to be all-inclusive (don't break things outside of the fix).
Very shortly I want to state publicly that in my opinion the future of Squeak progress is in the form of individuals and teams taking direct responsibility for packages and parts of the image. I think that anyone who has an interest in doing this should not wait and should speak up ASAP.
I know that Goran has signed on as a maintainer of some parts of the Network code in the Packages initiative , I'd like to volunteer for the same, however, my ability to connect to the internet has been practically non-existent for the past several months.
Ken