Process Change: Package Reviews with Flags

[Michael Schwendt]

On Mon, 5 Feb 2007 16:32:36 -0500, Bill Nottingham wrote:

> > The locked down owners.list makes it impossible to fix typos in it.
> 
> Is this *really* a problem? Considering I fixed a typo that was there
> for over 30 days with it open, not sure that it's the biggest concern.
> Obviously, 'don't break it' is the answer; the best solution is to
> get the package db up and running.

Some of us [including me] have fixed tons of typos which broke available
parsers. Now that it's locked, "don't break it" sounds like a nice rule of
thumb, but considering how often other locked things have been damaged
nevertheless (e.g. CVSROOT/modules) and required a fix, I prefer it when
more people can keep things running with a lower turn-around time rather
than only a very few.

> > Resurrecting dead packages has become more
> > difficult, too, especially for new contributors. Too many steps and
> > points of failure that can easily become an unpleasant experience for the
> > new contributors.
> 
> What's the failure point here now?

Packages marked as "dead.package" lack the "Makefile", which breaks
cvs-import.sh. There is a patch by me (posted to fesco in June last year)
which I've resent a few days ago, because it has not been applied so far.

> As for the import process, we can change how that works - instead
> of CVSSyncNeeded, for example, we could just, after APPROVED, assign
> the review bug to the CVS admins to do the magic, at which point they
> assign it back to the owner to do the initial import/build. Is this
> a better interface for users?

Urks. Even more reassignments inside bugzilla? That is error-prone. The
Wiki is also a very poor solution for such requests, because in it you
cannot communicate with the requester. Why is it that the ticketing system
is not used for such requests?