Re: Last gasp

Peter Geoghegan <peter(at)2ndquadrant(dot)com> writes:
> On 10 April 2012 18:28, Robert Haas <robertmhaas(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote:
>> I don't agree with that. I think that there are a few people who
>> don't now have commit bits who should be given them - in particular,
>> Fujii Masao and Kevin Grittner, both of whom have been doing
>> consistently excellent work for several years.

> I agree with you about both individuals. I hope that this happens
> sooner rather than later.

FYI, the core committee traditionally has a discussion about whom
to appoint as new committers at the end of each release cycle.
I'm sure we'll be thinking about these names this time.

>> Giving more people the ability to
>> commit stuff will neither force them to devote time to it nor make
>> them qualified to do it if they aren't already.

> One major component of being qualified, is, of course, knowing what
> you don't know, and the risk of being left with egg on your face turns
> out to be a pretty effective way of preventing new committers from
> being too eager. Giving more people bits has a cost: in general, I'd
> expect it to result in a higher bug-to-line ratio when code is
> committed. However, not doing so has an opportunity cost: less code is
> committed, which may, on balance, result in an inferior release than
> what we could have had. Maybe you think that we have the balance
> perfectly right, and you are of course perfectly entitled to that
> view, as well as being perfectly entitled to having your opinion more
> heavily weighed than mine, but I'd like to see a dialogue about it at
> some point.

We've done pretty well over the past fifteen years by being chary in
handing out commit bits. I don't particularly want to change that
policy. Obviously we do need a steady supply of new blood, since
people do leave the project, but relaxing our standards doesn't seem
like the way to get it. The impression I have is that we have a pretty
good and even increasing supply of new interested people, so letting
them acquire experience with the code base and eventually mature into
qualified committers doesn't look like a dead-end strategy from here.

regards, tom lane