Re: [PATCH] update xfs maintainers

Ben Myers
2013-11-11T03:49:20Z

Hey Dave,

On Mon, Nov 11, 2013 at 10:12:41AM +1100, Dave Chinner wrote:
> On Sat, Nov 09, 2013 at 06:30:49PM -0600, Ben Myers wrote:
> > On Sat, Nov 09, 2013 at 05:51:30PM -0600, Ben Myers wrote:
> > > On Sat, Nov 09, 2013 at 10:44:24AM +1100, NeilBrown wrote:
> > > > On Sat, 9 Nov 2013 06:59:00 +0800 Zhi Yong Wu <zwu.kernel@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > > On Sat, Nov 9, 2013 at 6:03 AM, Ben Myers <bpm@sgi.com> wrote:
> > > > > > On Fri, Nov 08, 2013 at 03:50:21PM -0500, Ric Wheeler wrote:
> > > > > >> On 11/08/2013 03:46 PM, Ben Myers wrote:
> > > > > >> >Hey Christoph,
> > > > > >> >
> > > > > >> >On Fri, Nov 08, 2013 at 11:34:24AM -0800, Christoph Hellwig wrote:
> > > > > >> >>On Fri, Nov 08, 2013 at 12:03:37PM -0600, Ben Myers wrote:
> > > > > >> >>>Mark is replacing Alex as my backup because Alex is really busy at
> > > > > >> >>>Linaro and asked to be taken off awhile ago. The holiday season is
> > > > > >> >>>coming up and I fully intend to go off my meds, turn in to Fonzy the
> > > > > >> >>>bear, and eat my hat. I need someone to watch the shop while I'm off
> > > > > >> >>>exploring on Mars. I trust Mark to do that because he is totally
> > > > > >> >>>awesome.
> > > > > >> >>
> > > > > >> >>Doing this as an unilateral decisions is not something that will win you
> > > > > >> >>a fan base.
> > > > > >> >It's posted for review.
> > > > > >> >
> > > > > >> >>While we never had anything reassembling a democracy in Linux Kernel
> > > > > >> >>development making decisions without even contacting the major
> > > > > >> >>contributor is wrong, twice so if the maintainer is a relatively minor
> > > > > >> >>contributor to start with.
> > > > > >> >>
> > > > > >> >>Just because it recent came up elsewhere I'd like to recite the
> > > > > >> >>definition from Trond here again:
> > > > > >> >>
> > > > > >> >> http://lists.linux-foundation.org/pipermail/ksummit-2012-discuss/2012-June/000066.html
>
> Yup, and my take on the role of a Maintainer is here:
>
> http://oss.sgi.com/archives/xfs/2013-08/msg00633.html
>
> > > > > > P: Silicon Graphics Inc
> > > > > > +M: Dave Chinner <dchinner@fromorbit.com>
>
> I flattered by this, but there is a reason I've resisted taking this
> position for a long time. Mainly for the reasons already mentioned:
>
> > > > Indeed. And does he even want the job? I heard Linus say in a recent
> > > > interview that being a maintainer is a $#!+ job.
> > >
> > > I've found that it can be a little bit stressful sometimes and it tends to
> > > crowd out feature work, so I guess I agree with him. It turns out to be an
> > > excellent weight loss plan.
>
> which are all true, but I'm already pulling most patches off the
> list, applying them to my own trees, testing them and reviewing
> them. Hence juggling them into a stable, non-rebasing git tree
> branch on a server somewhere isn't a huge amount of extra work...
>
> > > > Is it really best for the
> > > > most active developers to be burdened with that extra work?
> > > >
> > > > (hmm.. maybe I should add Dave to the Cc here .. but no-one else did so best
> > > > leave him alone to code in peace).
> > >
> > > Dave, what do you want to do here? Which email? What sort of arrangement? I
> > > gather that you probably do want the job, and I know you'll be fantastic. Do
> > > you want to do it all yourself? Maybe split it up?
> >
> > I should have also suggested that we can add you to this file and just keep our
> > existing arrangements. That seems appropriate to me, befitting of your
> > achievements, the work you've been doing, and I'm willing to keep on as I am.
>
> OK, I've read the thread and had a think about it. My thoughts are
> as follows....
>
> I'm not interested in being a co-maintainer in name only or only as
> a backup to only be used when Ben goes on holidays.
>
> Co-maintainer means SGI is giving me all the access and admin rights
> needed to commit and maintain git trees on oss.sgi.com (including
> creating new trees) at any time, at any point in a release cycle,
> etc. i.e. I can do anything that Ben can currently do on
> oss.sgi.com from XFS POV...
>
> Co-maintainer is not a kernel-tree only deal. It's for everything
> XFS related: kernel code, xfsprogs, xfstests and xfsdump.
>
> Co-maintainer does not mean "Dave does everything". Yes, I can do a
> lot of the heavy lifting, but I'm very happy for Ben to continue
> committing patches he reviews and handling userspace releases and
> pushing stuff to Linus and so on. There's some logistics we need to
> work out here so we aren't going to step on each other's toes, but
> there's no unsolvable issues here.
>
> Co-maintainer is not a role I will perform with a Red Hat on. I will
> review and sign off on anything in my co-maintainer role as
> "david@fromorbit.com". Hence I hope to be able to maintain a clear
> distinction between the duties I perform on behalf of the community
> and code that I write on Red Hat's behalf.
>
> Lastly, being a maintainer doesn't solve the problem of review
> latency of the code I write. I'm hoping that everyone understands
> that maintainers are still dependent on the receiving help from the
> community they serve to get their own work done.
>
> Ben, let's talk more about the logistics of this offline first
> before making anything official....

Sounds good. I'm AFK on Monday, so I'll ping you later in the week and
we can get together. ;)

Regards,
Ben