[ham] Goals for 2.22?

[Mick Weiss]

I agree with both posts. To be honest, there are problems with every
project. (I can't run a decent Debian PPC system without getting like 10
patches from the DebPPC developers list for example).

I'd like to see an up to date list of "these patches need to be
reviewed", "these are being reviewed by..." and an explanation of how to
get a patch into bugzilla. I remember a patch for LDAP SSL/TLS a while
back. I'm still not sure if it made it into Bugzilla itself.

A definite must would be a "how can I help". The other thought that I
had was company sponsorship. So some people can get paid to work on
Bugzilla. IIRC someone from AMD is now developing Bugzilla and Dave is
at least part time working on it (since he is now working for the
Mozilla Foundation - I believe that thread was "Re: Fostering developers
(was Re: Feature Request)").

How could Bugzilla go about getting company sponsors?

I myself would love to help with reviews. I'm just missing the first
steps I guess. I also only have Sundays that I can work on Bugzilla
stuff. Once a list is made of what should be looked at, I think it will
be easier for me (and others) to help out.

And how can you make sure that your patch actually ends up in Bugzilla?
I just remember that thread "LDAP TLS patch (ref: bug 250916)", because
I'm not sure what I'd do to submit a patch. I guess I'd post it here
(and in a bug), but I'm not sure that this got implimented. I don't have
OpenLDAP setup, and I'm not going to set it up anytime soon - so this
isn't something I can review myself, but I'm just curious.

When someone writes something like:
<snip>
Hello,

I didn't receive any response to my last e-mail when I sent a patch that
added START TLS support to Auth/Verify/LDAP.pm.  I have attached a slightly
revised patch to the bug itself at

   https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=250916

We are currently using this patch where I work and we are eager to get
this patch included into Bugzilla proper.  Please let me know what I can
do.

Thank you.
-- seth / @sethdaniel.org
</snip>

I can understand how de-motivating it can be when you don't get a reply.
  :-|

- Mick

(o> Web / software developer
( )     UNIX Systems Admin
---   ~ www.mickweiss.com ~



Tomas Kopal wrote:
> Completely concur to this post, could not put it better myself. IMHO the 
> problem of Bugzilla is not to get enough developers to get something 
> done, but to keep them around. And timely reviews (or at least some 
> reaction, any feedback is better than nothing) are the best way how to 
> keep people interested. And if you keep them interested long enough, 
> they will become experienced and can start reviewing too...
> 
> I have just short experience with submitting patches, but getting 
> reviews, getting feedback, getting some satisfaction and sense of 
> progress is the biggest problem IMHO.
> 
> Cheers
> 
> Tomas
> 
> Shane H. W. Travis wrote:
> 
>>
>> On Wed, 17 Nov 2004, David Miller wrote:
>>
>>
>>> That said, just because we have trouble getting people to work on the
>>> high-priority issues doesn't mean we should give up on it.  Perhaps we
>>> just need to change the tactics of how we solicit help for such things.
>>
>>
>>
>> IMHO, reviewing is a BIG issue. David Fallon wrote a week ago indicating
>> that he had a patch ready to apply, but nobody had looked at it. I've got
>> two 2.18 blockers that are ready to go... but again, no reviews. It's
>> quite possible that we're going about it in the wrong way, but other than
>> blindly setting 'r?' to the name of a complete stranger, there's not much
>> indication what the right way *is*.
>>
>> The fact that the Bugzilla Reviewer's list is way out of date doesn't 
>> help
>> either; I'm trying to help with the grunt work of documentation (so don't
>> talk to me about taking things that nobody else wants to do! :) but 
>> the one
>> person who has been helping out immensely (Vlad) isn't on that list at 
>> all,
>> whereas the two people who are listed for documentation (Jacob and 
>> Barnboy)
>> haven't been active in at least a year.
>>
>> Given that, I'm rather hesitant to set a code review to anyone on the 
>> list
>> other than Dave (for the blockers) because I have no idea who is and 
>> is not
>> still active in the community... so I either ask the air for a review
>> (which, apparently, is incredibly ineffective), or I spam the entire 
>> review
>> list with "r?" and hope someone still active catches it. Neither one is
>> really very satisfying.
>>
>>
>> Vlad's timely reviews of my documentation patches have played a 
>> SIGNIFICANT
>> part in getting me to do *more* documentation patches. As someone who is
>> still new to the process, I can tell you this: there's nothing more
>> disheartening than watching a patch sit (and possibly rot) without anyone
>> even acknowledging that it's there. Nobody likes to be ignored, 
>> especially
>> when one is trying to help. Being ignored basically sends the message 
>> that
>> nobody WANTS your help... and (correct me if I'm wrong) I don't think 
>> that's
>> the stance of the Bugzilla development team, is it? Because 
>> intentional or
>> not, it's the message that is often being sent to new contributors...
>>
>>
>> I know reviewing patches is not nearly as 'fun' as writing your own. 
>> Without
>> reviewers, though, people leave for lack of encouragement (or even
>> acknowledgement) and guidance. When that happens, no new blood comes onto
>> the project, and eventually everyone who is left on it burns out and it
>> dies.  I've seen it before -- not on things like Bugzilla (as this is my
>> first experience in this field), but in other volunteer organizations of
>> which I've been a part.
>>
>>
>> Lest anyone think I'm merely criticizing, I've already put my money 
>> where my
>> mouth is, and made an offer to Dave to review documentation patches. 
>> I'm not
>> well-known enough here to do code reviews, nor (honestly) would I feel
>> comfortable with it... but dagnabbit I know I can write, I'm anal about
>> spacing and punctiation, and I'm working on this SGML stuff. :)
>>
>>
>> Shane H.W. Travis       | Anyone who is capable of getting themselves
>> travis at sedsystems.ca    |  made President should on no account be allowed
>> Saskatoon, Saskatchewan |  to do the job.  -- Douglas Adams, HHGTTG
>>
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