Message-Id: <199512191932.LAA01287@lestat.nas.nasa.gov>
To: perry@piermont.com
Cc: netbsd-developers@netbsd.org
Subject: Re: the state of PRs. 
Reply-To: Jason Thorpe <thorpej@nas.nasa.gov>
From: Jason Thorpe <thorpej@nas.nasa.gov>
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Date: Tue, 19 Dec 1995 11:32:48 -0800
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On Tue, 19 Dec 1995 13:39:56 -0500 
 "Perry E. Metzger" <perry@piermont.com> wrote:

 > I think the problem is that many of us forget about things we've left
 > in the PR database. This is a way to jog the memory.

Well, whatever.  I suppose we can argue about this Forever.  I'll still 
maintain that One More Annoying piece of mail is still One More Annoying 
piece of mail.  (I imagine this thread is growing tiresome to many, as well.)

 > Dunno. I suspect a lot of them. Lots of them are also for single bugs.

Well, getting real information on this rather than using speculation 
would be a step in the right direction.  I do, however, acknowledge that 
this is a time-consuming process.  However, I'd also assert that this is 
simply the Wrong Time to get gung-ho about it, for at least a couple of 
reasons:

	* Ho Ho Ho!  Happy Holidays!  (I.e. how many people are traveling
	  and taking time off within the next couple of weeks?  How many
	  people want to have this decision made now when we're getting
	  ready to visit family.  I personally don't want to come back to
	  a mailbox full of PR summaries.)

	* I'd imagine some folks are doing year/term-end stuff.  There
	  are still people on this list that probably have finals to
	  take and/or grade.  There's probably folks preparing for or
	  doing year-end-reviews.  For them, NetBSD PR summaries Just Aren't
	  the #1 priority.

I could come up with a couple more reasons, I suppose, but the above two 
seem good enough to me to warrant putting the decision/topic off until 
_after_ Jan 1.

 > For enhancements and the like, we should decide, very quickly, either
 > to accept the enhancement and put it in, or to close the PR having
 > declined the enhancement. I don't think we generally do that, though.

I agree that system enhancements should be dealt with more quickly.  I 
don't think this is the right approach for making that change.

 > Probably a good idea, but who is to do the work? *Someone* has to be
 > responsible if the things are actually going to get done.

Obviously, final responsibility falls on `core'.  That doesn't mean, 
however, that someone can't volunteer to do some of the preliminary work.

 > Here is a strawman to get rid of a whole year's worth of PRs: maybe we
 > ought to parcel out the very oldest pr's (say, the 100 oldest) to the
 > members of the developers list. That ends up being two (or three at
 > most) PRs each -- hardly an ominous burden or more than a single
 > individual can track. By coincidence, if we cleared the 100 oldest
 > PRs, we would have brought ourselves up to the PRs from January, 1995
 > -- and thus would only have outstanding problems one year old to deal
 > with.
 > 
 > If people think this is a good idea I'll happily write a script to
 > give everyone on developers a couple of PR numbers to examine in
 > detail.

I agree with Ted that this is just more junk mail, but whatever.  I 
certainly hope that you can put this off until after New Year's, at least.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jason R. Thorpe                                       thorpej@nas.nasa.gov
NASA Ames Research Center                               Home: 408.866.1912
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