[csw-maintainers] Our core values: providing straightforward experience to the user

[Maciej (Matchek) Blizinski]

No dia 24 de Novembro de 2010 18:07, Philip Brown <phil at bolthole.com> escreveu:
> On 11/24/10, Philip Brown <phil at bolthole.com> wrote:
>>
>> I dont know about your definition of "high quality packages", but
>> "maintainer releases what is 'good enough for them', and no-one else
>> looks at it", definately does not fit my definition of it.
>
>
> To be clearer:
> I want the target that we aim at, to be,
> "high quality packages, EVERY TIME we release a package to current".

You use the term "quality of packages" as if it was obvious what it
means.  When you think about it, it may be not obvious at all.

Of course, there are things that are uncontroversial.  If a binary
segfaults, or there's a missing dependency, there's no doubt about
whether this constitutes a high or a low quality.

The problem can arise with issues which depend on personal taste.
What is high quality for Phil Brown, may be low quality for Maciej
Bliziński.  If maintainers are forced to release packages which are,
in their opinion, low quality packages, it demoralizes them.

A single person in power can also hurt package quality.  Imagine a
scenario in which there is a package, which has two issues, let's call
them A and B.  The package is unmaintained, and one maintainer takes
on the issue A, fixes it and submits the fix for release.  The updated
package is better than the previous one, but the release manager,
using his discretionary powers, rejects the package, saying that the
maintainer should fix issue B as well.  The maintainer feels he's
being controlled, the release manager believes he's right and insists,
and both end up in a deadlock.

This kind of an issue would not happen in a consensus driven
community.  The updated package would be released, and the issue B
would get eventually fixed too.

> Not, "we release packages often. The quality of packages cycles
> between low and high, based on how many people decide to file bugs
> against already released packages"

Phil, I understand you mean well and you want packages to work well,
and I want the same thing.  But I believe that package quality should
not be based on what Phil Brown (or any single person, for that
matter) happens to think is right.  It should be based on what the
OpenCSW community agrees on.