On 01/05/14 21:15, Gert Doering wrote:
Hi,
On Thu, May 01, 2014 at 08:06:46PM +0300, Samuli Seppänen wrote:
A few notes about where we get our patches from... in the documentation
we do say that "post the patch to openvpn-devel list". That was a
decision that was reached some years ago. However, we, in practice, do
accept patches from Trac, GitHub and IRC. We should probably change the
documentation to reflect this.
Actually, openvpn-devel *is* the way, with trac being second (due to
the way we reference every commit to a mail on openvpn-devel, trac
patches basically need someone re-sending them to the list).
Github and IRC are *not* a welcome input for patches, because it doesn't
match the agreed-upon workflow ("ack or nack on the list, reference that
message in the commit"), and doesn't have the benefit of trac to be
tied to a ticket that can be set to a given milestone, etc.
IRC is very welcome to bounce around ideas ("should we fix this? if
yes, in which way?") but it needs to result in a patch being sent to
openvpn-devel. Actually, this is often the reason why some patches get
ACKed much quicker than others - they have been discussed, the reason
for the change is well-understood, and for complicated stuff, the details
how to tackle it might have been agreed-upon beforehand.
+1
[...snip...]
On 01/05/14 19:06, Samuli Seppänen wrote:
Lack of developer time is the biggest issue for us, and that lack of
time results in unnecessary work having to be done later; like having
and maintaining a patch tracking page instead of just handling the
patches immediately as they are sent to the list.
+1 ... For some more info to Timothe, I used to be quite active for a long
time. But I almost "hit the wall" late last summer, and had to pull the
emergency break and reduce my workload. I simply did too much and OpenVPN was
one of the things which took quite some time for me. I've not resigned
completely, but I'm incredibly grateful Gert was able to pick up where I had
to drop. Gert has done an amazing job, far better than I could ever do! I'll
come back somehow, and I even have a few patches on the ML which lingers too -
but I need to step carefully forward. But these patches which already are on
the ML does need help to get tested and reviewed.
We're really lacking developer time. And developers often needs to also try
to keep track of what happens a few places too. So this is a bad circle, as
to where to put the efforts today. So I'm open to discuss a way to move this
patch tracking and some of the administrative work "away" from the developers,
if anyone is available and have time and energy. That's not something which
requires really deep developer skills, but interest and somewhat knowledge
about development is always good. And it can be a good starting point to get
more involved in more core development with time as well, as it's a perfect
way to gain more knowledge about OpenVPN and how it works ... And if no-one
chimes in, things won't change all too much.
So the key point is probably: Do you dare to get your hands dirty? Then there
might absolutely be a possibility to join in :)
--
kind regards,
David Sommerseth
