Bug#620018: Openstack Compute nova, Cactus release, Squeeze built available in our private repo

[Soren Hansen <soren@ubuntu.com>]

2011/4/18 Thomas Goirand <thomas@goirand.fr>:
> On 04/18/2011 05:29 AM, Soren Hansen wrote:
>> 2011/4/16 Thomas Goirand <thomas@goirand.fr>:
>>> On 04/16/2011 01:32 PM, Lucas Nussbaum wrote:
>>>> On 16/04/11 at 10:43 +0800, Thomas Goirand wrote:
>>>> What the state of collaboration with the upstream packagers?
>>> Replied more extensively privately to that one.
>>
>> This, even more than your constant lecturing on Debian policy, frankly
>> pisses me off.
> What are you referring about for the policy?

I've lost count of the times you've tried to lecture me on what is
forbidden, how this or that absolutely must be, etc. Even if you were
always correct, it's extremely frustrating and disrespectful that you
always assume ignorance.  I'm well aware that all our executables should
have man pages. I'm well aware that we can't ship a patched ajaxterm in
our packages. I'm well aware of what should go in a package's
description.  I'm well aware of the meaning of a dependency vs. a
recommended package.  I also have a pretty good idea which of those
things are blockers (like, say, shipping a patched ajaxterm instead of
using the system one) and which ones aren't (e.g. a missing dependency).
I consider myself a rather experienced packager, but I feel you're
treating me like a rookie packager who as never read the Debian Policy.

> All I've been fixing aren't *my* lecture of the policy, but the ones
> of *lintian*. There's no way I'm going to upload something in the
> Debian archive if lintian warns me about anything.

That's fine. Making the package lintian is a great goal! It really is.
Personally, I subscribe to the idea that perfect is the enemy of good
enough. Had I spent a couple of extra days fixing every tiny little
detail about the packaging, there'd 27 other bugs in OpenStack itself
that wouldn't have been fixed. That doesn't mean that I don't know that
there's more work to be done, just like I know the same is true for
OpenStack. At the end of the day, I need to decide what is more
critical. Our packages worked, and aside from not cleaning up very
thoroughly after themselves on removal, I don't think any of the issues
with the packages would be considered RC problems.

> Now, you are telling 2 things that are opposing each other. You are
> saying that my "constant lecturing on Debian policy" above, and below
> that you need more discussions about my proposed merges with you. Most
> of my changes are to be policy compliant. So, please choose one of the
> two and stick to it.

"most" being the operative word. You've proposed a bunch of changes, all
of them in the same branch. You've asked me to review and pull that
branch. I've found changes I disagree with, so I ask you to fix them
before I pull. I'd be happy to review and merge your changes piecemeal
if you would simply propose them that way.

Also, even though I asked you not to, you went and rebased your branch,
so I had to start over with my review. That cost me quite a bit of time.

>> If you have something to say, at the very least have the guts to say
>> it in public
> I did. What I added privately to Lucas was mostly that I had bad
> feelings for the future,

If you think there are problems with our collaboration, *we* are the
people you should be discussing with. How else are we going to address
it?

> because of reactions like this:
>> otherwise this collaboration ends right here.
> which I wanted to avoid, knowing already how quick you can be to
> react.

Admittedly, I get upset and extremely frustrated when people have issues
with me or my work, but instead of confronting me, discuss it with other
people. It's exactly how our collaboration started (instead of
discussing changes with me, you posted on debian-devel to find other
people who wanted to help fix my work). It's disrespectful and it's
frustrating that we can't move past that sort of workflow.

> What I wrote as well, is that it seemed to me that Debian was not your
> priority. Am I wrong with that?

I'm not sure how to answer that. Getting Openstack into Debian is on my
list of goals. It's not at the top, because, you know, there can only be
one thing at the top. I'm not sure whether that amounts to a "yes" or
"no" to your question.

>>> But in short: my patches were not pulled, and I hope to get more
>>> feedback and reactivity from upstream packagers in the future.
>> It would be quite helpful if you'd either a) follow the same process
>> as everyone else and submit a merge proposal when you have something
>> ready for review or at least b) let me know whenever you expect me to
>> review your stuff.
> I did b), multiple times, on both IRC and email. You agreed on the
> discussed changes, which is why I didn't get why my proposed changes
> were not pulled.

Because I disagree with some of them, and you've proposed them as one,
great big branch.

>> Every once in a while, I've gone and looked and have given you
>> feedback.
> I agree I had the feedback 2 weeks ago, yes. I can even add that I was
> quite happy to discuss my changes with you. But that's it, it ended
> there, with no reason given why my changes were not merged, which I
> would have feel strange about it if there was no major release of
> Nova.

Two reasons: 1) At least one of the few things I pointed out still
hasn't been fixed (two of the man pages still refer to this non-existant
"cloud controller") and 2) the fact that I had to start over, because
you rebased your branch. I had reviewed it and provided some comments,
but because you rebased, I couldn't just go and look at what you changed
afterwards and see if that addressed my concerns and didn't introduce
other changes.

>> If you expect more than that, I suggest you discuss it with me
> What more do you think we have to discuss, since last week?

You seem dissatisfied with the process. If that's the case, that's
something we should discuss.

>> instead of being passive aggressive in other fora about it.
> I reread myself 3 times to make sure I wasn't aggressive, and made
> sure I wouldn't hurt you. Where was I?

For instance, when you say:

> My package is lintian clean (the Ubuntu package, really, is not),

and

> I have done loads of patches to have the package to fit in Debian,
> comply with the policy, and be lintian clean

..along with your above mentioned lecturing on Debian Policy, I feel
you're degrading the work we put into the packages.  No, they're not
perfect. I could spend days or maybe even weeks perfecting them, but in
the grand scheme of things, I've got more important things to do (other
things are much further from perfect than the packaging).

Also, pointing out that you've replied to part of it in private seems
passive aggressive or at least disrespectful to me. You have stuff to
say about me or our collaboration, that isn't appropriate to say in
public.  What am I supposed to think or expect?

-- 
Soren Hansen
Ubuntu Developer    http://www.ubuntu.com/
OpenStack Developer http://www.openstack.org/