Re: Question for all candidates: Release process
Hi Frans,
Let me first start by stating that I'm sadly concerned about the tone
of your mail.
Nobody claims that the release process has been done perfectly, there
have been mistakes, but we are all human and we can all make mistakes.
It's alright to point those mistakes out so that people can correct
them, but I find your mail disturbing, because it feels more like
attacking the past Release Managers than trying to improve the overall
project quality.
With that in mind, I'll answer only a few of the issues you raise,
those that I feel are relevant to the upcoming election.
On Mon, Mar 15, 2010 at 12:30 PM, Frans Pop <elendil@planet.nl> wrote:
> The Release Team should IMO keep in mind that it's not *they* who make a
> release, but the whole project together. And the best way to get respect
> for their work is for them to respect the vastly bigger amount of work
> done by all other DDs collectively.
I think that the whole project should keep that in mind, not just the
Release Team, and I feel there are many people who don't care enough
about releases and thus do not help out.
I agree that communicating more often could help, but it would also be
necessary to agree on some common goals for the project, so that we
really are working all together as a community instead of just doing
some solo work. That's one of the things I plan to do as DPL:
establish (by talking with the affected teams) some common goals to
work on, and communicate them project wide so that we are all working
together towards that.
> Ideally the Release Manager should
> spend more time on communicating with the rest of the project than on
> handling transitions.
I agree with this (and many of the removed-due-to-being-aggressive
quotes). However, the lack of man power means that the Release
Managers end up in charge of transitions and lack the time to do the
real communication and coordination.
The role of the DPL is to help developers do their work as good as
possible. In this case, the only thing that can be done is try to
inspire more people to help out with the release team, but this is not
an easy task, since working on transitions requires extra knowledge
that many DDs don't have, and the release team members don't
necessarily have the time to train them.
We currently and very sadly don't have a Release Manager. Please let
me suggest that, when a Release Manager is appointed, you should
direct your suggestions about management to them, focusing on what
could be done better, without the need to attack whatever was done
wrong in the past.
--
Besos,
Marga
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