Re: Suggested new CF status: "Pending Discussion"

On Monday, March 4, 2013, Robert Haas wrote:

> On Sun, Mar 3, 2013 at 9:27 PM, Josh Berkus <josh(at)agliodbs(dot)com<javascript:;>>
> wrote:
> >> I thought it was a useful idea anyway, but I could see his point. This
> >> should probably move to "Waiting on Author" when it happens, presuming
> >> that the person who wrote something is motivated to see the change
> >> committed. (If they weren't, why did they write it?)
> >
> > Except that the implication of "waiting on author" is that, if there's
> > no updates in a couple weeks, we bounce it. And the author doesn't
> > necessarily control a bikeshedding discussion about syntax, for example.
>
> That's true. I think, though, that the basic problem is that we've
> lost track of the ostensible purpose of a CommitFest, which is to
> commit the patches that *are already ready* for commit.

Is that true of all commitfests, or only the last one in a cycle? If the
former, I think the existence of the "waiting on author" category belies
this point.

> Very little
> of the recently-committed stuff was ready to commit on January 15th,
> or even close to it, and the percentage of what's left that falls into
> that category is probably dropping steadily. At this point, if
> there's not a consensus on it, the correct status is "Returned with
> Feedback". Specifically, the feedback that we're not going to commit
> it this CommitFest because we don't have consensus on it yet.
>

That is a fair point, and I think Tom has said something similar. But it
leaves open the question of who it is that is supposed to be implementing
it. Is it the commit-fest manager who decides there is not sufficient
consensus, or the author, or a self-assigned reviewer?

I know that I certainly would not rush into an ongoing a conversation, in
which several of the participants have their commit-bits, and say "I'm
calling myself the reviewer and am calling it dead, please stop discussing
this." Or even just, "stop discussing it as an item for 9.3".

I think the role of the commit-fest manager is that of a traffic-cop, not a
magistrate. But if we are going to have "Commitfest II: The summary
judgement", that needs to be run by a magistrate, as a separate process
from the ordinary part of a commitfest.

Cheers,

Jeff