Re: libAWSL: Improving Human Efficiency for debian/copyright Reviewer

[Sam Hartman <hartmans@debian.org>]

Hi.

I've reviewed most of the spec you point to on salsa.

I think you might be getting some of the details before the basic
principles.

I agree with the principles you state, but would  probably state them
differently:
* Incremental review is valuable and is likely to improve our processes
* Minimizing duplicate review or unnecessary re-review is valuable
* getting reviewers the information they need so that they are not being
slowed down searching for it is valuable

* Better tooling can help with the above.

I tend to agree with all those principles and believe they are similar
in spirit to what you state.

Unfortunately, being a member of Debian, I find myself getting stuck in
the details and think you may have gotten a few things wrong.

* I think that reviewing a file every time the salt changes is too
  frequent.
  It is a sign that we might need to review, not that we certainly do.
  We don't tend to review files every time they change today, and I
  think pushing toward this would be problematic.

* Unfortunately the srcpkg-bool problem does not decompose into a set of
  file-bool problems the way you describe.
  The issue is license compatibility.
  Two licenses may be DFSG-free, but their combination may not be
  distributable (and thus not DFSG-free).



Next Steps

The biggest thing I see missing here is what are the next steps?
If we agree with your principles, what next?
How does this work go forward?