PATCHES: Release Suggestion

Kenichi Okuyama okuyamak at dd.iij4u.or.jp
Sat Nov 11 16:47:04 GMT 2000


Dear Joe,

>>>>> "JD" == Joe Doran <joed at pc-ltd.co.uk> writes:
JD> So far I have come across two patches submitted during last couple of
JD> weeks that are relevant to my systems. 
JD> I can think of a number of reasons why: Bad coding, breaks other code,
JD> too many to consider testing and so on....
<omitted>
JD> What do people think?

I don't think this itself will work.

What you're saying is to create extreame number of branches.  This
itself is possible. We well have many branches that work.  But how
do we put them togather? Who manages differences between each
branches? And how will it be merged? I'm sure that speed of having
newer patch is always faster than merging, especially when Samba is
at quality right now.


So I think what we need is three things.

1) more who can directly make change against cvs.
2) test groups
3) people who can manage 1 and 2.

We are sure that we need more people who can look at patch, attach
it to "current" code ( we need it to be "current" for patch might
stand on older "public" version ).

We also need lots of peoples who can test the patched version.
With them, we can check for multiple patches at once.

We also need someone who can decide which patch to attach&test
first, and which to do after. This manager sometime have to request
to patch creator to re-create patch for newer version. Or, apologise
to them that they don't have time for applying the patch to current.


I think we need more and more test groups. As Samba have to face
more and more to Internationalization, we need more people who can
treat, know, and have testing environment for individual Locale.


For "more coder"... well, I rather would like to say
"Stop adding new functions, clean up what you're standing on, for 
 foundation is dirty and muddy now.
 If we could clean them up, now we can focus on what's on
 foundation. Once we're done with foundation, we can even build
 Tower of Babel, or orbit elevators if we want".

Or else, I'm sure that Jeremy and many others who works for Samba,
will be tumbled down because of pressures. I'm sure that those who
Jeremy believe "relies" to his new function, is not "relying" to the
function yet, for the service is not being supported yet. They are
begging, with extreme pressure, for the function, but they are not
relying.

But ... well, at least, Jeremy believe that cleanup is not in high
priority... all I can say is "add more people", though senior at IBM
says that this will never works in book "Mythical Man Month".


And if more peoples will be involved, we need manager. This is
always true, unless we can clearly divide code into units, by making
clear about interface inbetween units. But dividing into units
requires cleanup of entire Samba, which requires stop adding new
functionality for once, which was rejected ....


So ... I don't think your way will work, Joe, though I have no good
idea.
---- 
Kenichi Okuyama at Tokyo Research Lab, IBM-Japan, Co.




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