[U-Boot-Users] Added a custodian status page to denx.de/UBoot

[Jerry Van Baren <gerald.vanbaren@smiths-aerospace.com>]

Ben Warren wrote:
> Jerry,
> 
> On Thu, 2007-04-05 at 10:31 -0400, Jerry Van Baren wrote:
> 
>> If we use branches:
>> 1) Primarily used in the custodian trees:
>>     a) Useful for keeping track of work in progress
>>     b) Specifies what Wolfgang needs to pull into the mainline
>> 2) Must be kept clean - delete ones no longer useful
>> 3) VERIFY/merge with the mainline BEFORE requesting a pull.  If Wolfgang
>>       finds a pull requires a merge, YOU HAVE FAILED as a custodian (or
>>       u-boot's world has shifted under your feet - probably the latter;-)
>>
>> I see 1b) as being very important.  Wolfgang has been VERY responsive 
>> for pull requests (THANKS!) compared to the pre-custodian days.  If it 
>> takes more than a few days to pull a set of changes into the mainline, 
>> branches are the only practical way to keep track of what is pending. 
>> Trying to say "pull from 7cd5da0fe877e7171a4cdd44880bce783132871a to 
>> aea03c4e8c3a21ce43d3faf48a6e6d474c8bdf73" is NASTY (OK, that was a bit 
>> of a paper tiger).
> 
> I think I'm more in agreement with Wolfgang on this.  The master branch
> should be what he pulls from, and code there should be expected to be
> ready for inclusing in the main tree.
> 
> I was thinking of using branches for less trivial changes.  For example,
> if somebody submits a new driver, the custodian would put in on a
> 'testing' branch after it passes coding style and peer-review of logic.
> He/she would then send out an invitation for testers.  After the
> custodian and others are satisfied, the branch is merged with master,
> and a pull request is made to Wolfgang.
> 
> Branches could also be used for more radical re-factoring efforts.  For
> example, I'm not very happy with the mess that is 'eth.c', with all its
> #ifdef-wrapped initialize() functions.  When time permits, I'd like to
> do this in a cleaner way and invite others to help out with
> design/coding/testing.  Another example is the work Grant's doing on the
> memory commands.  It seems to me that branches are the way to go here.
> 
> Maybe I'm over-complicating things.  Maybe we're all really in complete
> agreement and I just didn't parse your ideas properly.  Stranger things
> have happened...
> 
> Thoughts?
> 
> Ben

I think we are fundamentally in agreement, but my point of view is that 
a custodian repository is, by definition, (fairly) radical changes.  My 
concern is that, if we restrict ourselves to only the mainline of the 
custodian repository, it is very difficult to have more than one change 
"in flight" and it makes it nearly impossible to publish "work in 
progress" that isn't ready to be pulled yet.  Wolfgang has been very 
responsive (have I said THANKS! yet?) so time of flight for pull 
requests has not been a problem... yet.

Best regards,
gvb