Re: Role of Release Goals
On 2013-12-02 23:59, Charles Plessy wrote:
> Hi all,
>
Hi,
> am I wrong or among the supporters of the concept of release goals,
> there are no members of the release team themselves ? If yes, then
> it may be more fruitful to explore alternatives.
>
I think there are (or, at least, were) some supporters of the concept
on the team. I certainly remember several members of the release team
following the Multi-Arch/ia32-libs removal release goal in Wheezy.
I suspect part of the issue is that the current team is less
invested in many the individual goals compared to earlier releases.
In theory, this should be good - the project should be able to have a
release goal without the driver behind it being a member of the
release team.
In practise, it has not worked out so well. In my experience, many
of the Wheezy release goals became "second-rate" goals - we simply
failed to follow up on those goals as we promised, we would. To me,
release goals became "that outstanding job we never had time for"[1].
Honestly, I had mixed feelings when we decided to stop doing release
goals. On one hand, I felt we were letting go of a good tradition and
at the same time, I felt relieved that we would have one less thing
hanging over our heads.
Despite us letting go of release goals, I would love for the project
to have something like release goals. If I have but one "release
goal" for Jessie, then it is to get our freeze/release process back on
track (including a freeze no longer than 6 months). I do not think it
satisfies our own SMART criteria, but consider it a personal goal of
mine. :)
> The Debian Enhancement Proposals (DEP) have an advantage, as they
> provide a way to record whether a given goal is still relevant
> after a release, or if it has eventually been obsoleted.
>
> http://dep.debian.net/
>
> Have a nice day,
>
It is quite possible that we should be looking at DEPs as (a part of)
the replacement for release goals.
I certainly hope that people, who wanted to do a release goal for
Jessie, will not be stopped by all of this. Rather, I would be glad
if they still carried out their proposal - be it as a personal goal
for Jessie or a DEP. The secret behind completing a release goal is
"doing it" (or convincing other people to do it for you[2]).
~Niels
[1] Please note that this had nothing to do with the actual goals
proposed for Wheezy or Jessie. There are several goals for both
Wheezy and Jessie I accepted/considered to accept as a release goal.
[2] Pro-tip: Tools like Lintian and piuparts are exceptionally good at
convincing people to change their packages. :) They tend to also
give you at least the SM in SMART. Then you just have to focus on the
ART of the (release) goal. (SCNR)
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