[U-Boot] [STATUS] Help needed - urgently

Wolfgang Denk
2011-11-15T15:01:19Z

Hello all,

I guess most of you will already have noticed that my activity on the
mailing list has significantly declined recently. I'm sorry for that,
but I find myself in a situation where I have even less time
available for U-Boot than usually. In the result, the number of
unapplied (and sometimes unreviewed) patches is growing and growing.

I need your help. we need to find a way to distribute the workload
for "general" patches (i. e. those that don't fall obviously into the
responsibility of a specific custodian) across more shoulders than
just mine. Pressure on me has been building up already for some time,
and now we've reached the point where we need to find a solution.

One possible approach has been suggested before:

> >> Maybe the load can be spread here - maintainers can put these in
> >> designated
> >> branches in their repositories. I know this will cause the odd
> >> conflict,
> >
> > If you script this (based on pwapply) you can bail out early if the
> > patch is no longer in state "New".
> >
> >> but we (the maintainers) could also periodically sync between each
> >> other.
> >> Another alternative is to create a new repo that all the
> >> custodians have
> >> access to...
> >
> > That would be easy to do...
>
> Maybe that's what we do - Once a patch reaches maturity (a revision
> with an Ack and maybe a Tested-by) any maintainer can just put it in
> the 'next' repo - You can always veto it and not pull it into
> mainline anyway, but at least it gives everyone a semi-stable
> platform to base patches for the next merge window

I would like to try this out now, taking effect immediately.

I have created a new repository "u-boot-staging", where all current
custodians (should) have write access to.

My proposal is as follows (please feel free to comment):

- Any custodian is able (and encouraged) to pick up unapplied patches
that have "reached maturity" (ideally an Ack and maybe a
Tested-by), but at least no negative feedback on the mailing list,
and re-review these. If they are considered OK and do not cause any
new build issues, they can be applied. Please don't forget to
update the entries in Patchwork.

- To ensure quality, no custodian should apply his own patches.

- After reviewing and build testing (MAKEALL for at least two
different architectures) the stuff can be pushed into a _branch_ of
the "u-boot-staging" repository. I suggest to use the custodian's
e-mail address as branch name.

- After that, the custodian can send a pull request to me.

Please let's try if this works. If you have any suggestions how to
help better, please don't hesitate to tell us.

Thanks.

Best regards,

Wolfgang Denk

--
DENX Software Engineering GmbH, MD: Wolfgang Denk & Detlev Zundel
HRB 165235 Munich, Office: Kirchenstr.5, D-82194 Groebenzell, Germany
Phone: (+49)-8142-66989-10 Fax: (+49)-8142-66989-80 Email: wd at denx.de
The important thing about being a leader is not being right or wrong,
but being *certain*. - Terry Pratchett, _Truckers_