On Fri, Jan 10, 2003 at 12:41:38PM +1100, Stas Bekman wrote:
> Jeff Trawick wrote:
>...
> > As has been mentioned many times before on this list, if a patch isn't
> > committed or commented on, you have to remind us.  There are as many
> > whys for this requirement as there are httpd committers trying to
> > juggle multiple responsibilities.
> > 
> > Consider us reminded, but not chastised.  Many of us have been playing
> > hookey through the holidays and have all manner of todos to catch up
> > with.
> 
> It's understandable. But it doesn't help to make other people want to 
> contribute.

Volunteers only have so much time to contribute. I don't think it is fair to
get upset at people because they aren't providing you with enough of their
time.

> The only reason I persist is because I work on mod_perl and 
> mod_perl relies on httpd things, so I *need* things to be fixed (e.g. 
> because we autogenerated docs from httpd header files in this particular 
> case).

We know, but there is still the question of available time. It would
certainly be nice to do everything we can to help another ASF project, but
it does seem rather obvious that the current set of maintainers just can't
keep up with the load requested of us from our users (not to mention the
stuff that various people want to see complete and to work on).

> Others who submit things they have noticed wrong, but don't 
> really require a fix, move on, when their posts/patches are ignored, so 
> the efforts are just getting lost.

Quite unfortunate, but that is life. What more do you expect? People have
limited bandwidth, and can only see and track so much. And that is also
focused on "what is interesting to me". That is simply the way it works.

Yes, it would be good to see every single patch, and to track every single
one, but the developers are simply busy busy busy.

> You are talking about httpd committers having "multiple 
> responsibilities", but I think you really mean "multiple itches to scratch".

Don't even start. You have no idea what kinds of responsibilities people
have, so it is totally unfair of you to imply something else. Jeff says he
has a bunch of other responsibilities. Great. He does. Don't try and tell
him or us that he doesn't, unless you happen to stand in his shoes, too.

The real truth is that Jeff works for IBM and part of his job responsibility
is to work on Apache. Great for us. But his efforts are going to be
extremely bound to the commercial needs of IBM. Certainly, there is a
personal component over and above IBM's needs, but then you're really moving
into personal interests. And you can't claim that time for yourself; that's
Jeff's time.

> Perhaps the httpd project could benefit from having a pumpkin, similar

That isn't part of our culture. I don't think it would work here. The httpd
group doesn't have any notion of central authority, so a pumpkin isn't going
to receive the kind of mandate that Perl pumpkins get. And there isn't a
Larry here to bestow the pumpkin title on anybody.

Central authorities definitely help with moving projects forward, but you
can't simply swoop in and impose such a thing.

>...
> If that was the case, things (especially simple ones like my patch) 
> won't fall between chairs, leading to more inspiration from users to help.

It could, but it also (obviously) requires somebody to track the incoming
patches, analyze them, assess their cost/benefit, and then to apply them.
The time that people have and are making available to httpd doesn't seem to
be satisfying your notion of "timeliness". What do you suggest? That people
are required to put in more time to get to your patch? Where is that time
coming from?

People are a limited resource. When you stop to consider their desires and
what they choose to work on, then the amount of time available to any
particular endeavor is going to be limited.

Cheers,
-g

-- 
Greg Stein, http://www.lyra.org/

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