Re: Feature Freeze
On Sat, Oct 07, 2006 at 07:05:34PM -0400, David Nusinow wrote:
> On Fri, Oct 06, 2006 at 02:19:02PM +1000, Drew Parsons wrote:
> > David Nusinow wrote:
> > > > I thought you had made a simple mistake in calling the freeze before
> > > > they had been processed, so I thought I was providing a service in
> > > > helping get them done as quick as possible.
> > >
> > > It was a simple mistake, you were 100% right in that.
> >
> > So it's like this. You unilaterally announce a policy without
> > consulting with other members of the team. The policy has missed
> > something, so a team member takes the initiative to fill in the bits
> > which are missing. You respond by pontificating about "team playing",
> > using the vilest possible threats.
> >
> > You don't see a problem in this picture?
> >
> > Hint: an alternate response might look like "oh damn, I'd forgotten
> > about the input drivers. Thanks for getting on to them. Is there
> > anything else we missed before ratifying the freeze?"
>
> So what am I supposed to do if someone does something that is, in fact, a
> very bad idea and violates the freeze? What do I do if you decided that,
> the new i810 driver is a good idea too? And the new ati driver? Or RandR
> 1.2? The list goes on and on, and it's my responsibility to make sure we
> stop somewhere. Branden assigned me this responsibility when letting me
> work on xorg in his place, and it's something I take very seriously. Just
> because I've freely invited every interested party to work directly on the
> archive does not mean that I have given up this responsibility.
>
> With that responsibility comes the right, as well as responsibility, for
> unilaterally deciding when to freeze, the same way the Debian RM's and the
> Xorg RM's and every other RM in every other project has the right and
> responsibility to do this. This is a standard working model for most
> projects, and as a result, no, I don't see a problem with this.
>
> Furthermore, I wouldn't have responded the way I did if you had just
> committed to svn. But you uploaded to the archive too. Since you have
> upload privledges, I *can't* prevent you from doing these things as release
> manager, effectively limiting me in my ability to do my job. And in case
> you haven't noticed, it's *me* that people in Debian hold directly
> responsible for the quality of these packages right now. So it's me that
> has to answer to everyone for such problems. So when I come down hard on
> you for disregarding the *one* real restriction I have as RM, that I be
> allowed to freeze at release times, try to keep it in perspective. We could
> always make it a pull-only system, but neither of us want that.
>
> So we have a few options. Either I kick everyone out of uploaders but me
> and consider any freeze-breaking upload to be a hijack, or we cooperate.
> Those are the only ways that I can see where I can effectively do my job.
> If you don't think we should have an RM for the team, or that I'm doing a
> bad job of it, then let's make that the issue. But as it stands, I'm still
> the RM, and I need to have the ability to do that job. Now I'd prefer not
> to go the route where I'm the only uploader, but I am willing to do that.
> After all, that's how it was for 6.8 and 6.9, and that's how it was for
> most all of 7.0. I'd rather cooperate though, but for that to work you need
> to let me do my job.
This was all harsher than it should have been. I need some time to cool off
and figure out a way for this to work to make us all happy. I'll say it
outright that my goals are, in order of priority:
1) Release a good, up to date Xorg that we can all be proud of
2) Keep you guys happy
3) Keep our users happy
I'm obviously failing at #2 and I need to think about how I'm going to fix
that. Two out of three may not be bad, but it's not acceptable to me and
I'm not going to let myself try and lead you guys that way. I'm sorry I'm
fucking up so bad, but I'll try and do better in the future.
If you have concrete suggestions for how to handle these things in the
future, and even right now, please post them in a reasonable manner. I
won't reply to the thread for a little while (probably some days) to give
myself the chance to calm down and figure out some ways for this to work
well for everyone. I'd appreciate any help you guys could offer to make a
workable solution for all of us.
- David Nusinow
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