Hi Ean, this is interesting but comparing two very different products like OFBiz and the Linux kernel is an extreme practice; also the size of the OFBiz community is far smaller and we don't have a lot of help/contributions (out of the committers group). But of course things could change over time.
Jacopo On Mar 11, 2010, at 5:24 PM, Ean Schuessler wrote: > ----- "Jacopo Cappellato" wrote: >> thanks for sharing your thoughts about our strategy about committers and >> commit rights. >> If we are not happy about the results of our last resolutions we can review >> and rethink it, I am wide open to discuss this. >> We actually may want to explore the following strategy: >> 1) do not change commit rights but >> 2) define some sort of hierarchy where "junior" committers are assigned to >> "senior" committers that are responsible for validating the work they do in >> specific areas > > This is exactly the way things are handled in the Linux kernel and exactly > why Adam and I have been excitedly calling out "use GIT, use GIT!". The > kernel team long ago ran into the problems of scaling control with the size > of the contributing community. Originally they handled everything as a bunch > of shell scripts that glued a workflow together out of tar balls and > patchsets. Eventually that gave way to BitKeeper, which was up to the task > but crippled by its proprietary nature. That lead to GIT. > > In my mind, we should clone the Linux source management model because what we > are running into is already a solved problem for them. There should be a very > limited (perhaps even 1 or 2) number of people who commit directly to the SVN > repository and those 1 or 2 people should be primarily focused on > architecture and style rather than developing new features. Under this model, > a commit process might look like this: > > (Advance warning: there are mild comedic elements in this exchange. Adjust > mental tone to "positive".) > > - Hans: I've just radically expanded the ProjectManager to automatically > synchronize itself with todo-items on BaseCamp, JIRA, DebBugs, Bugzilla and > LaunchPad. > - David: Wow, that's interesting, let me take a look at that. (pulls a copy > of Hans' updates into a branch in his GIT repository) > - David: This is cool stuff Hans, but the 2,700 line commit with the comment > "make stuff work" and the varying 3,4,7 and 9 space indents mixed with tabs > trouble me. Can you fix that? > - Hans: I'm terribly busy making some money over here David and what I've > done is very important. Can someone out there polish up those tiresome flaws > and work our David's complaints? > - SomeGuyOnTheList: Gosh, I really need BaseCamp integration. I'll try to > help. > (various conversations, patches and history rewriting occur between SomeGuy > and Hans) > - SomeGuyOnTheList: Hey David, I've worked with Hans this past week or so and > its a lot cleaner now. You want to pull the latest version from Hans or my > repo? > - David (pulling the latest version): The vastly improved state of this code > puts a song in my heart! I am no longer a man whose will has been broken by > the travails of building concensus in a community with divergent interests! I > am free and I shall happily commit these changes! > > (a vast cheer goes up from ERP-less small businesses everywhere) > > This fairytale can easily become a reality because, unlike the Linux > community in its time of darkness, the tools to make it happen are a solved > problem. We merely have to borrow best practices from our friends who can > both provide us examples and advice if we need it. > > -- > Ean Schuessler, CTO Brainfood.com > [email protected] - http://www.brainfood.com - 214-720-0700 x 315
