Hi folks, Some discussion between Nicholas, Aaron, and me started in the comments of HDFS-3168 which I think is better exposed on the mailing list instead of trailing an already-committed JIRA.
The question at hand is what the policy is with regarding our review-then-commit policies. The bylaws state: >>> *Code Change* A change made to a codebase of the project and committed by a committer. This includes source code, documentation, website content, etc. Lazy consensus of active committers, but with a minimum of one +1. The code can be committed after the first +1, unless the code change represents a merge from a branch, in which case three +1s are required. <<< The wording here is ambiguous, though, whether the committer who provides the minimum one +1 may also be the author of the code change. If so, that would seem to imply that committers may always make code changes by merely +1ing their own patches, which seems counter to the whole point of "review-then-commit". So, I'm pretty sure that's not what it means. The question that came up, however, was whether a non-committer contributor may provide a binding +1 for a patch written by a committer. So, if I write a patch as a committer, and then a community member reviews it, am I free to commit it without another committer looking at it? My understanding has always been that this is not the case, but we should clarify the by-laws if there is some ambiguity. I would propose the following amendments: A committer may not provide a binding +1 for his or her own patch. However, in the case of trivial patches only, a committer may use a +1 from the problem reporter or other contributor in lieu of another committer's +1. The definition of a trivial patch is subject to the committer's best judgment, but in general should consist of things such as: documentation fixes, spelling mistakes, log message changes, or additional test cases. I think the above strikes a reasonable balance between pragmatism for quick changes, and keeping a rigorous review process for patches that should have multiple experienced folks look over. Thoughts? Todd -- Todd Lipcon Software Engineer, Cloudera
