Re: 8.2 features status - Mailing list pgsql-hackers

On Fri, Aug 04, 2006 at 09:58:08PM -0400, Tom Lane wrote:
> andrew@dunslane.net writes:
> > Greg, you are on an utterly wrong track here. Try to look about a bit more
> > broadly.
> 
> FWIW, I tend to agree with Greg.  This project has gotten to where it is
> with a very loose structure, and I think that trying to impose more
> structure carries a significant risk of breaking the cooperative
> dynamics that have worked so well for us so far.  In short, I'm not sure
> that we should try to fix something that isn't clearly broken.
On the other hand, such an informal system only scales so far. It
doesn't seem onerous to me that when someone claims something on the
TODO that the TODO reflects that they've claimed it and when.

To answer Greg's question about non-commercial projects with a 'formal
development process', FreeBSD has someone publish quarterly status
reports of where everything's at, and AFAIK there's no commercial
sponsorship (except for a few limited cases, like PHK).

> I don't object to someone informally polling people who have claimed a
> TODO item and not produced any visible progress for awhile.  But I think
> anything like "thou shalt report in once a week" will merely drive
> people away from publicly claiming items, if not drive them away from
> doing anything at all.  We've already got far too much problem with
> lack of visibility, in the sense that people pop up with patches after
> not having told anyone they were working on a given problem (much less
> posted a preliminary design for feedback, as I desperately wish people
> would do before starting to code anything).  We should encourage people
> to say "I'm working on X", and I fear that putting requirements on them
> as soon as they say that will mostly serve to keep them from saying
> anything.

Perhaps having an easy interface on the TODO would be a way to foster
that... an "I want to work on this item" button that would email whoever
claimed an item hints like "please come up with a design and discuss it
on -hackers before you start coding". And it shouldn't be hard to set
that up so that it's not a burden for regular committers (ie: have a
list of email addresses not to send those notices out to).

BTW, such a system should make it much easier to come up with release
notes/major features list for each release.
-- 
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