Message-ID: <46377733.3060703@postgresql.org>
Date: Tue, 01 May 2007 18:21:55 +0100
From: Dave Page <dpage@postgresql.org>
User-Agent: Thunderbird 1.5.0.10 (Windows/20070221)
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: Josh Berkus <josh@agliodbs.com>
CC: pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org, Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us>,
	Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>, Heikki Linnakangas <heikki@enterprisedb.com>,
	Simon Riggs <simon@2ndquadrant.com>
Subject: Re: Feature freeze progress report
References: <200705011452.l41EqPN10520@momjian.us>
	<46375C0B.9050305@postgresql.org>
	<200705010943.19924.josh@agliodbs.com>
In-Reply-To: <200705010943.19924.josh@agliodbs.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Josh,

Josh Berkus wrote:
> Is there a reason why the system needs to be primarily based on e-mail?  I was 
> thinking that the patch manager would be entirely a web tool, with people 
> submitting and modifying a patch directly through a web interface.  This 
> would be lots easier to build than an e-mail based system, and also far more 
> useful from a monitoring standpoint.  I've worked with e-mail based systems 
> like RT and OTRS, and frankly they're extremely high-maintenance and suffer a 
> large amount of "lost" information.

The reason for basing the system on email is simply that it minimises 
the changes required in the community process. If it were entirely web 
based, we'd have to change the way we all work to discuss patches in a 
forum style, rather than a list style. I have a sneaking suspicion that 
at least one of our most valued contributors might object to that.

As long as the patch were initially submitted through the web interface 
so that it got assigned an ID, we could automatically track the initial, 
and followup threads on any of the lists as long as the ID is retained 
in the subject line.

> We could also build a number of other things into the web tool, like a "You 
> are submitting this patch under BSD" disclaimer and pointers to the Developer 
> FAQ and other relevant documents.
> 

Oh for sure. We could even do silly stuff like try to automatically 
determine if the patch is in diff -c format ;-)

Regards, Dave