From: Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us>
Message-Id: <200609020032.k820Wlr25548@momjian.us>
Subject: Re: Getting a move on for 8.2 beta
In-Reply-To: <200609011639.42280.josh@agliodbs.com>
To: josh@agliodbs.com
Date: Fri, 1 Sep 2006 20:32:47 -0400 (EDT)
CC: pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org, Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>
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Josh Berkus wrote:
> Bruce, Tom, all:
> 
> > No rejiggering is going to get people to complete things they didn't
> > complete under the old system.  
> 
> It'll help the new people.  A lot of people -- if not most -- submitting 
> their first major patch to PostgreSQL dramatically underestimate the 
> amount of fix-up that's going to be required, and assume that there won't 
> be a spec discussion, which there often is.  By getting them to submit a 
> little at a time, *earlier*, we can avoid doing those things at the last 
> minute.

That is in the developer's FAQ.

> Alternately, we can just make sure that first-time patchers have mentors 
> who check progress well before feature freeze.
> 
> > The plan you list above is what we did 
> > for this release.
> 
> No, it's not.   There's a bunch of patches which we had nothing on -- not 
> spec, not design draft, not anything -- until we got them on July 20th.  
> Our current system is to have only one deadline, at which point you're 
> expected to have 85% of the patch done and up to PostgreSQL standards.  
> That's quite a bit of "jumping in with both feet" for a newbie.

Right.  The developer's FAQ says they should follow a process.  Making
another process doesn't mean they will follow that either.

> 
> > I did try to get us additional help in reviewing.  Neil was unavailable,
> > and Alvaro could only give part of his time
> 
> Asking two people is not exactly an all-out effort to get reviewers.  

Well, not sure what else I can do.  Those are the people who used to
help out a lot.

> > It strikes me that setting feature freeze in midsummer might not be the
> > best strategy for having manpower available to review --- people tend to
> > be on vacation in August.  Maybe the answer is just to move the dates a
> > bit one way or the other.
> 
> We've discussed that issue before, yes.  Since we're proposing a new 
> roadmap process for 8.3, and will likely be dealing with a lot of major 
> patches, maybe that's the release to delay?

Moving it away from summer might help, yea.

-- 
  Bruce Momjian   bruce@momjian.us
  EnterpriseDB    http://www.enterprisedb.com

  + If your life is a hard drive, Christ can be your backup. +