[ros-dev] Prelude to voting for the Testing Coordinator Roles and Responsibilities.

[WaxDragon]

On 10/16/05, Ge van Geldorp <gvg at reactos.org> wrote:
> > From: WaxDragon
> >
> > So you would like the TC to toil away testing applications
> > on builds, making lists of what works and what doesn't, just
> > to have no power to get anything actually fixed?
>
> No, that's not what I said. I said I would carefully look at your list and
> basically follow it. However, I do want an escape route. After all, it's my
> time I invest. And of course, I'm more than willing to talk about priorities
> with the TC.

I understand it's your time, I've always tried to keep that in mind
when talking with the developers about bugs.  That is also why I spend
some of my own time trying to comprehend and document the bug
beforehand.

>
> > Frankly I tire of sitting on IRC begging people to fix bugs.
>
> I certainly hope you won't have to beg. When weird_w asked me last week to
> look at the SBITs font problem I hope I didn't make him feel like a begger.
> He just explained to me why it was important to him that this bug got fixed
> and I put it on the top of my list. The same with bug 880. To me it seems a
> minor annoyance that you have to press Alt-Tab when returning from graphics
> mode to restore the text screen properly, but I understand that it's more
> than annoying to you. Ok, I dig that and will fix it this week. Please
> understand that sometimes you need to provide a little background to make me
> grasp exactly why it's such a big problem.
> As far as I know, I've always treated requests from fellow developers (and I
> include you in the developers) with higher priority than requests from Joe
> Random User. But you need to give me some leeway to have fun of my own too.
> Now, I like debugging and fixing stuff (I see a bug as a puzzle to be
> solved), but picking up a bug from Bugzilla has this distinct "fixing other
> peoples problems" feel to it. Usually I have a pet project going on (right
> now it's FireFox) and often I find it even more fun to work on that than on
> fixing other peoples bugs. I need to have some fun so I won't burn out.

Again, I understand.  I take breaks from bugzilla and work on other
pet projects too.  The SBIT problem is an old one, and wierd_w had
been on the channel several times asking about it, without much
response, but he pressed on and kept coming back.  After hearing his
findings several times, I pressed him to file a specific bug, and you
were quick to pick it up and resolve it. I was were happy, as was
wierd_w.  I've appreciated the work you have done for me, Ge, and I
have tried to not hassle you.

>
> > From: Casper Hornstrup
> >
> > IMHO the TC shouldn't be able to tell people what to do.
> > Nobody, not even our Project Coordinator should be able to do
> > that. The project is still made up of volunteer people and
> > nobody is getting paid to work on ReactOS. If you can
> > convince someone to fix a problem then fine. Get a date for
> > when it is expected to be fixed and ask here if we should
> > delay the release for a few days. If not then just go ahead
> > with the release as there might not be anyone that will fix
> > it for several months.
>
> Wow, I couldn't have said it better. That is exactly what I meant.

We let two specific blockers ship in the last release after discussing
with with the devs on IRC. There are "big" bugs still in the tree, and
I under stand that some of them will take a long time to get fixed.  I
understand we cannot force people to work on anything.  I sent out a
*tentative* blocker list for 0.2.8 and all I got was attacks.  I was
just trying to prompt discussion about the next release, but here we
are.


The main issue from my standpoint is that the Release Coordinator
should work with the Testing Coordinator.  Brandon and I were trying
to work with Robert to train another on doing releases, and when I got
back that afternoon from shopping, RC1 was built and up on sourceforge
with a rather large bug.  Had we simply waited a day, we would have
been able to ship an RC1 without that single bug.  I just wanted us to
look good.

I think the TC is an important position that ReactOS needs, due to
it's complexity.  However, I have decided to no longer continue as TC,
if I was even TC to start with.

It's arguments like these that hurt ReactOS more than anything.

WD