[bug#59513] [PATCH] doc: contributing: Tweak the Commit Policy.

[Christopher Baines]

zimoun <zimon.toutoune@gmail.com> writes:

> On Thu, 24 Nov 2022 at 08:40, Christopher Baines <mail@cbaines.net> wrote:
>
>>> On Wed, 23 Nov 2022 at 10:49, Christopher Baines <mail@cbaines.net> wrote:
>>>
>>>> +For a minority of changes, it can be appropriate to push them directly
>>>> +without sending them for review.  This includes both trivial changes
>>>> +(e.g. fixing typos) but also reverting problomatic changes and
>>>                                               -^
>>>> +addressing regressions.
>
> To be sure you have not missed the typo here. :-)
>
> s/problomatic/problematic

Thanks, I've fixed that locally now.

>> Also, this guidance is very general, and I think it should be applicable
>> to all changes. We already trust people with commit access to know what
>> needs doing, I see this documentation as more about how, so I'd prefer
>> not to try and put a list here.
>
> Yes, we trust people.  But a public and explicit policy reinforces the
> trust, IMHO.  It also documents what commit access means.  It is not
> because people with commit access already know what they need doing that
> all people know, I guess.

I don't disagree that we should make the expectations about
functionality and testing explicit, but I want to see that separate from
the commit policy.

>>> and I would keep the «two weeks» instead of the «one week except».
>>
>> My reason for changing this is that I think waiting two weeks after
>> sending a simple patch is unreasonable. The value from the automated
>> testing will come after one to two days, I just put a week to avoid
>> changing it too much, but maybe the lower bound should be two days.
>
> Who is verifying the impact of a change? :-) Just a recent example to
> fix the ideas.  The same situation is happening more than often but not
> that often neither. :-)

...

> My point is: Considering leaf packages, yeah once submitted, the review
> can be fast (couple of days) especially with the new QA.  Considering
> all the other packages, who is checking the impact of a change?
>
> Otherwise, we have again and again some broken packages.  For sure, the
> QA is helping *a lot* for improving!  Well, on one hand, I understand
> the willing to merge faster and, even I am not convinced that from two
> weeks to one week would be detrimental.  On the other hand, using Guix,
> I replaced the pressure when running “apt-get upgrade” by an eternal
> annoyance of broken packages popping here or there.

This is going a bit off topic I think.

In general, the direction I'm trying to move the policy in here is one
where more changes get sent to guix-patches rather than getting pushed
straight to the repository.

Checking the impact of changes is important, but you can't do that with
a policy on committing. If however people send changes to guix-patches
prior to pushing, then there's at least a chance that some automatic
"verifying/checking" can take place.

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