On Fri, Apr 11, 2008 at 1:32 PM, Magnus Hagander <magnus@hagander.net> wrote:
> > > The apache group seems to say the patches are indeed ignored, rather
> > > then just delayed --- for us, every patch does get a reply, however
> > > delayed.
> > >
> >
> > Bruce, I think that this comes back to the perception versus reality
> > discussion you and I have had on more than one occasion :). You are
> > correct that we always, eventually reply but, until we do (especially
> > when it takes a long time) it appears as if people are being ignored.
>
> I will continue to claim that no, we don't always do that. The vast
> majority of the time we do, but there is no way that we can claim to
> respond to them all. No, I cannot point you to an example where this
> has happened.
Well, I can provide an easy example: my first patch [1]. We hashed out
the design on -hackers as contributors are encouraged to do, and I
submitted my first patch to -patches. It included a bunch of
first-time-contributor questions that I had about the proper pgsql way
to do things. It got zero responses. It was as if I had dropped it
into a black hole. Eventually I re-submitted it after 8.2 was
released, and some time after that I got a your-patch-has-been-saved
email.
I have no idea how often that happens, perhaps I'm an exception, but
it was incredibly discouraging.
However I see this as being a side-issue - the problem is knowing the
current status of patches, not the occasional patch that drops
through. And if I as a submitter can stick a patch up on a wiki or
tracker and then email the list for feedback that's probably good
enough, and we could probably do away with -patches altogether,
dealing with the fragmentation issue. That alone would reassure a
contributor that their patch wouldn't get lost, though it wouldn't
guarantee that anyone would look at it.
The reason a tracker is better imo than a wiki is that a wiki still
needs someone to maintain an index page (or multiple index pages for
different queues), so there's still an opportunity for something to
fall through. Or are we suggesting that a first-time contributor
should be editing a patch queue index page on the wiki? Trackers don't
have these issues though - managing lists like this is what they were
born to do.
Cheers
Tom
[1] http://archives.postgresql.org/pgsql-patches/2006-09/msg00000.php
