On 11/22/2016 7:52 PM, Neil Horman wrote: > On Mon, Nov 21, 2016 at 09:52:41AM +0100, Thomas Monjalon wrote: >> 2016-11-18 13:09, Neil Horman: >>> A) Further promote subtree maintainership. This was a conversation that I >>> proposed some time ago, but my proposed granularity was discarded in favor >>> of something that hasn't worked as well (in my opinion). That is to say a >>> few driver pmds (i40e and fm10k come to mind) have their own tree that >>> send pull requests to Thomas. >> >> Yes we tried this fine granularity and stated that it was not working well. >> We are now using the bigger granularity that you describe below. >> > Ok, thats good, but that must be _very_ new. Looking at your git tree, I see > no > merge commits. How are you pulling from those subtrees?
next-net tree is active for last three releases. I guess following is the first commit to the sub-tree: http://dpdk.org/ml/archives/dev/2016-February/032580.html sub-trees rebase on top of main tree regularly, that is why there is no merge commit. > > >>> We should be sharding that at a much higher >>> granularity and using it much more consistently. That is to say, that we >>> should have a maintainer for all the ethernet pmds, and another for the >>> crypto pmds, another for the core eal layer, another for misc libraries >>> that have low patch volumes, etc. >> >> Yes we could open a tree for EAL and another one for the core libraries. >> > That could be worthwhile. Lets see how the net and crypto subtrees work out > (assuming again that these trees are newly founded) > > >>> Each of those subdivisions should have >>> their own list to communicate on, and each should have a tree that >>> integrates patches for their own subsystem, and they should on a regular >>> cycle send pull requests to Thomas. >> >> Yes I think it is now a good idea to split the mailing list traffic, >> at least for netdev and cryptodev. >> > Agreed, that serves two purposes, it lowers the volume for people with a > specific interest (i.e. its a rudimentary filter), and it avoids confusion > between you and the subtree maintainer (that is to say, you don't have to even > consider pulling patches that go to the crypo and net lists, you just have to > trust that they pull those patches in and send you appropriate pull requests). I still find single mail list more useful. Also with current process, after -rc2 release, patches directly merged into main tree instead of sub-trees... > >>> Thomas in turn should by and large, >>> only be integrating pull requests. This should address our high- >>> throughput issue, in that it will allow multiple maintainers to share the >>> workload, and integration should be relatively easy. >> >> Yes in an ideal organization, the last committer does only a last check >> that technical plan and fairness are respected. >> So it gives more time to coordinate the plans :) >> > Correct. Thats never 100% accurate of course, some things will still have to > come to you directly, simply by virtue of the fact that they don't completely > fit anywhere else, but thats ok, the goal is really just to get your total > patch > volume lower, and replace it with pull requests that you can either trivialy > mere or figure out with the help of the subtree maintainer. > >>> B) Designate alternates to serve as backups for the maintainer when they >>> are unavailable. This provides high-availablility, and sounds very much >>> like your proposal, but in the interests of clarity, there is still a >>> single maintainer at any one time, it just may change to ensure the >>> continued merging of patches, if the primary maintainer isn't available. >>> Ideally however, those backup alternates arent needed, because most of the >>> primary maintainers work in merging pull requests, which are done based on >>> the trust of the submaintainer, and done during a very limited window of >>> time. This also partially addreses multi-vendor fairness if your subtree >>> maintainers come from multiple participating companies. >> >> About the merge window, I do not have a strong opinion about how it can be >> improved. However, I know that closing the window too early makes developer >> unhappy because it makes wait - between development start and its release - >> longer. > > This is a fair point, but I'm not talking about closing it early here, all > I'm suggesting is that, if you do proper pull requests from subtrees, your > tree > Thomas will only need a reasonably small window of time to accept new > features, > because you'll just merge the subtrees, rather than integrating individual > patches. E.g. you won't be constantly merging patches over the course of a > development cycle, your tree's HEAD will mostly consist of merge commits as > subtree maintainers send you pull requests, and ideally they will send those > near the start of a window. How long you keep your merge window open after > that > is up to you. > > Neil > > > >>
