[darcs-users] commit bits now in place

Eric Kow kowey at darcs.net
Thu Aug 6 11:15:45 UTC 2009


Hi again everybody,

Thanks to work by Petr (on HPC and buildbots in particular), we now have
the infrastructure we need to shift to a commit-bit model of
development.

So we've made the switch! But what exactly does it mean?

A very modest change
--------------------
Darcs development will continue work the same way it did before
we made this switch.  Patches must still be sent to the mailing list,
and they must still be reviewed and applied by somebody else.  This is
true for all developers, committers and non-committers alike.  The only
change is that there is now more than one person who can do the actual
pushing of patches.

Who pushes: At present, this would be the current Review Team (Trent
Buck, Eric Kow, Dmitry Kurochkin, Reinier Lamers, and Petr Ročkai).
We'll grow the team maybe even expand the pool beyond that as needed.

When to push: Upon review.  If a patch passes inspection, send an email
with your review and push away.

In case of fire, break glass
----------------------------
There may be some corner cases where this can pose problems, namely if
committers disagree about whether or not to apply a patch.  I think we
can solve this and other such situations lazily (crossing the bridge
when we get to it).

Before we do arrive at said bridge, I recommend that we take an "we're
all grownups here" approach, that is with the understanding that
committers only push patches they think they understand and which they
do not expect to be controversial.  We may make mistakes from time to
time and that's perfectly OK :-)

Third: In the Darcs tradition of moving forward cautiously, I'll throw
in the Iron Fist safeguard: if we ever do arrive at an impasse, some
situation that we cannot resolve with the usual consensus, I reserve the
right to step in and rule by decree.  I'm not very fond of using the
Iron Fist (although it does make a very satisfying thump), so I'm hoping
that this just-in-case clause never needs invoking.

Please let me know if you have any questions!

-- 
Eric Kow <http://www.nltg.brighton.ac.uk/home/Eric.Kow>
PGP Key ID: 08AC04F9
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