> I'm picturing something like this:
>
> 1. Each person taking an item agrees to write at least one email each
> week to -hackers detailing progress or lack of same on the item.
>
> 2. Should someone wish to relinquish a claim on a feature, there needs
> to be some standard way to do a hand-off of whatever they've
> done/found and announce that the feature is now available to others to
> claim.
>
> 3. Should the person claiming the feature not communicate to -hackers
> for some period--I'm thinking 3 weeks is about right--the item goes
> back in the unclaimed pool with a message to -hackers saying that
> that's what's happened.
>
> What say?

I say that many people have been shouting on deaf ears about this topic
for a long time and that I back an idea to change our incredibility
inefficient policies on todo items.

We are like the last bastion of anarchy, refusing to except that we are
in fact a recognized and important open source project that has
responsibilities to its community.

Those responsibilities include better communication, feature tracking
and milestones...

but alas... again the walls of the canyon echo until there was nothing
but the sound of water and crickets.

Sincerely,

Joshua D. rake


>
> Cheers,
> D


--

=== The PostgreSQL Company: Command Prompt, Inc. ===
Sales/Support: +1.503.667.4564 || 24x7/Emergency: +1.800.492.2240
Providing the most comprehensive PostgreSQL solutions since 1997
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On Fri, Aug 04, 2006 at 12:40:01PM -0700, David Fetter wrote:
> While I am not going to reopen the can of worms labeled 'bug tracker',
> I think it would be good to have a little more formality as far as
> claiming items goes.

Agreed.

> I'm picturing something like this:
>
> 1. Each person taking an item agrees to write at least one email each
> week to -hackers detailing progress or lack of same on the item.
>
> 2. Should someone wish to relinquish a claim on a feature, there needs
> to be some standard way to do a hand-off of whatever they've
> done/found and announce that the feature is now available to others to
> claim.
>
> 3. Should the person claiming the feature not communicate to -hackers
> for some period--I'm thinking 3 weeks is about right--the item goes
> back in the unclaimed pool with a message to -hackers saying that
> that's what's happened.
>
> What say?

It's a shame to have a person burn cycles on this, but anything would be
an improvement over what we've got now.
--
Jim C. Nasby, Sr. Engineering Consultant jnasby@pervasive.com
Pervasive Software http://pervasive.com work: 512-231-6117
vcard: http://jim.nasby.net/pervasive.vcf cell: 512-569-9461

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Jim C. Nasby wrote:
> On Fri, Aug 04, 2006 at 12:40:01PM -0700, David Fetter wrote:
> > While I am not going to reopen the can of worms labeled 'bug tracker',
> > I think it would be good to have a little more formality as far as
> > claiming items goes.
>
> Agreed.
>
> > I'm picturing something like this:
> >
> > 1. Each person taking an item agrees to write at least one email each
> > week to -hackers detailing progress or lack of same on the item.
> >
> > 2. Should someone wish to relinquish a claim on a feature, there needs
> > to be some standard way to do a hand-off of whatever they've
> > done/found and announce that the feature is now available to others to
> > claim.
> >
> > 3. Should the person claiming the feature not communicate to -hackers
> > for some period--I'm thinking 3 weeks is about right--the item goes
> > back in the unclaimed pool with a message to -hackers saying that
> > that's what's happened.
> >
> > What say?
>
> It's a shame to have a person burn cycles on this, but anything would be
> an improvement over what we've got now. --------

Really?

--
Bruce Momjian bruce@momjian.us
EnterpriseDB http://www.enterprisedb.com

+ If your life is a hard drive, Christ can be your backup. +

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On Fri, 2006-08-04 at 12:40 -0700, David Fetter wrote:
> While I am not going to reopen the can of worms labeled 'bug tracker',
> I think it would be good to have a little more formality as far as
> claiming items goes.

> What say?

I think this is a good plan for adding additional process overhead, and
getting essentially nothing of value in return. I'm not convinced
there's a problem in need of solving here...

-Neil



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>>> What say?
>> It's a shame to have a person burn cycles on this, but anything would be
>> an improvement over what we've got now. --------
>
> Really?

I lot of this could be automated with a web app. The web app takes the
todo, a hacker signs up. Hacker takes todo. Web app reminds hacker every
6, 8 weeks to post an update or release the todo.

Every 6/8 weeks we get an automated email to pgsql-hackers that states
the current status of the todo list.
Joshua D. Drake




--

=== The PostgreSQL Company: Command Prompt, Inc. ===
Sales/Support: +1.503.667.4564 || 24x7/Emergency: +1.800.492.2240
Providing the most comprehensive PostgreSQL solutions since 1997
http://www.commandprompt.com/



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On Fri, Aug 04, 2006 at 02:37:56PM -0700, Neil Conway wrote:
> On Fri, 2006-08-04 at 12:40 -0700, David Fetter wrote:
> > While I am not going to reopen the can of worms labeled 'bug
> > tracker', I think it would be good to have a little more formality
> > as far as claiming items goes.
>
> > What say?
>
> I think this is a good plan for adding additional process overhead,
> and getting essentially nothing of value in return. I'm not
> convinced there's a problem in need of solving here...

Perhaps you'd like to explain how big a burden on the developer it is
to send an once a week, that being what I'm proposing here.

As far as the "problem in need of solving," it's what Andrew Dunstan
referred to as "splendid isolation," which is another way of saying,
"letting the thing you've taken on gather dust while people think
you're working on it."

Cheers,
D
--
David Fetter <david@fetter.org> http://fetter.org/
phone: +1 415 235 3778 AIM: dfetter666
Skype: davidfetter

Remember to vote!

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David Fetter wrote:

> On Fri, Aug 04, 2006 at 02:37:56PM -0700, Neil Conway wrote:
>> On Fri, 2006-08-04 at 12:40 -0700, David Fetter wrote:
>>> While I am not going to reopen the can of worms labeled 'bug
>>> tracker', I think it would be good to have a little more formality
>>> as far as claiming items goes.
>>> What say?
>> I think this is a good plan for adding additional process overhead,
>> and getting essentially nothing of value in return. I'm not
>> convinced there's a problem in need of solving here...
>
> Perhaps you'd like to explain how big a burden on the developer it is
> to send an once a week, that being what I'm proposing here.
>
> As far as the "problem in need of solving," it's what Andrew Dunstan
> referred to as "splendid isolation," which is another way of saying,
> "letting the thing you've taken on gather dust while people think
> you're working on it."

Well I guess the key thing is that its transparent who is working on
what feature and that someone (some projects have a new release manager
for every release) keeps tabs on these people (maybe once every few
weeks he asks how things are progressing, if the target can still be
made etc). Maybe this can even be enumerated into a percentage value
that can be published so that people who feel a given feature is very
important to them can see if things are lagging behind.

Actually the person keeping track of these feature developments does not
need to be a pgsql hacker. As a matter of fact I have been trying to do
something similar for the PHP project and I am more than willing to do
the same for PostgreSQL. I do not however think it makes sense to ask
developers to send in reports in a regular basis on their own.

regards,
Lukas

"Joshua D. Drake" <jd@commandprompt.com> writes:

> Those responsibilities include better communication, feature tracking and
> milestones...

Wow, if we had all those we could have as efficient a release-engineering
process as Mozilla!



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>
> "Joshua D. Drake" <jd@commandprompt.com> writes:
>
>> Those responsibilities include better communication, feature tracking
>> and
>> milestones...
>
> Wow, if we had all those we could have as efficient a release-engineering
> process as Mozilla!
>
>

This is not really a good argument. Might it not be possible that there is
a sweeter spot somewhere in the middle? I don't think anyone wants
something very heavy handed.

cheers

andrew



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Folks,

> This is not really a good argument. Might it not be possible that there
> is a sweeter spot somewhere in the middle? I don't think anyone wants
> something very heavy handed.

Well, I think the answer is just to set something up and see if people can
use it. If we keep kibitzing about it, the grousing will go on forever.

Mind you, I'm not thinking a bug tracker, but just a task manager for the
TODOs. BTW, I've road-tested GForge's task manager and it's not adequate
for what we need.

--
--Josh

Josh Berkus
PostgreSQL @ Sun
San Francisco

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