On Fri, Jun 01, 2007 at 04:59:42PM -0500, Al Hopper wrote:

> Please don't ask an unpaid, volunteer, OpenSolaris developer to make 
> changes that are simply stylistic or (personal) preference based. 
> Consider that Sun employees are paid to make any changes their 
> management requests - but that simply can't apply to volunteers like 
> Roland who have already put *hundreds* of unpaid man-hours into a 
> project.

He's not asking Roland to make changes because he's his manager and
can tell him what to work on.  The correct way to interpret this is as
an exchange of review commentary between peer engineers.  If Roland
doesn't want to make those changes, Meem can ask the C-team to block
his RTI due to unsatisfied review comments.  That's not the same as
saying that Roland has to do this or that or he's fired.

If you want to say that the rules for acceptable style, or the right
use of makefile macros, or for that matter anything else are different
based on who's paying, or not, for the work, then you're saying that
quality doesn't matter.  At that point all someone has to do to make
arbitrarily wrong changes is assert that "no one's paying me, so it
doesn't matter how wrong it is."

False.  And, for that matter, in direct contradiction of every
principle we've (Sun, the CAB, the OGB, and pretty much everyone else
in this community) asserted from day one: this is a badge-blind
technical community.  We've not always done well at making that
principle into reality, but when for once it's working please don't
tell us that it's the wrong idea.

The rules are the same for everyone.  If Roland wants to see ksh93 in
ON, he needs to satisfy his reviewers, or at least convince them that
there is no immediate need for change.  That rule applies always and
everywhere.

> PS: If its good enough to integrate its *good* *enough* to integrate. 
> We simply can't build GOLD-PLATED software using unpaid OpenSolaris 
> volunteers.

I feel quite certain that Meem would give the same feedback to anyone,
without regard for who's paying him.  And that's the right thing.
Review comments aren't necessarily about gold-pating the software;
they're about getting it right.  Needless divergence from existing
standard usage is not acceptable.  Meem's comments and questions
indicate both a desire for correct, maintainable software and to learn
whether there are legitimate reasons for divergence.

-- 
Keith M Wesolowski              "Sir, we're surrounded!" 
FishWorks                       "Excellent; we can attack in any direction!" 
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