[openstack-dev] [ptl] code churn and questionable changes

Doug Hellmann doug at doughellmann.com
Thu Sep 22 15:28:57 UTC 2016


Excerpts from Amrith Kumar's message of 2016-09-22 15:18:06 +0000:
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Boris Bobrov [mailto:bbobrov at mirantis.com]
> > Sent: Wednesday, September 21, 2016 10:35 AM
> > To: OpenStack Development Mailing List (not for usage questions)
> > <openstack-dev at lists.openstack.org>
> > Subject: Re: [openstack-dev] [ptl] code churn and questionable changes
> > 
> > Hello,
> > 
> > > in addition to this, please, PLEASE stop creating 'all project bugs'. i
> > > don't want to get emails on updates to projects unrelated to the ones i
> > > care about. also, it makes updating the bug impossible because it times
> > > out. i'm too lazy to search ML but this has been raise before, please
> > stop.
> > >
> > > let's all unite together and block these patches to bring an end to it.
> > :)
> > 
> > People who contribute to OpenStack long enough already know this.
> > Usually new contributors do it. And we cannot reach out to them
> > in this mailing list. There should be a way to limit this somewhere
> > in Launchpad.
> 
> [amrith] Actually, not true. Some of the changes I'm seeing are from people who have a track record of these kinds of changes. And if there is a knob in Launchpad somewhere, I sure as hell can't find it.

As far as I know, there is no way to prevent someone from attaching a
project to a bug.

We could start to address the problem by documenting some bug management
best practices in the project team guide so that it's easy to leave a
comment similar to the one Sean left on the bug mentioned earlier in
this thread, but without having to repeat the same info every time. Then
we can educate individual contributors who make these sorts of changes
by referring them to the documentation.

Doug

> 
> > 
> > > On 21/09/16 07:56 AM, Amrith Kumar wrote:
> > >> Of late I've been seeing a lot of rather questionable changes that
> > >> appear to be getting blasted out across multiple projects; changes that
> > >> cause considerable code churn, and don't (IMHO) materially improve the
> > >> quality of OpenStack.
> > >>
> > >> I'd love to provide a list of the changes that triggered this email but
> > >> I know that this will result in a rat hole where we end up discussing
> > >> the merits of the individual items on the list and lose sight of the
> > >> bigger picture. That won't help address the question I have below in
> > any
> > >> way, so I'm at a disadvantage of having to describe my issue in
> > abstract
> > >> terms.
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> Here's how I characterize these changes (changes that meet one or more
> > >> of these criteria):
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> -    Contains little of no information in the commit message (often
> > just
> > >> a single line)
> > >>
> > >> -    Makes some generic statement like "Do X not Y", "Don't use Z",
> > >> "Make ABC better" with no further supporting information
> > >>
> > >> -    Fail (literally) every single CI job, clearly never tested by the
> > >> developer
> > >>
> > >> -    Gets blasted across many projects, literally tens with often the
> > >> same kind of questionable (often wrong) change
> > >>
> > >> -    Makes a stylistic python improvement that is not enforced by any
> > >> check (causes a cottage industry of changes making the same correction
> > >> every couple of months)
> > >>
> > >> -    Reverses some previous python stylistic improvement with no clear
> > >> reason (another cottage industry)
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> I've tried to explain it to myself as enthusiasm, and a desire to
> > >> contribute aggressively; I've lapsed into cynicism at times and tried
> > to
> > >> explain it as gaming the numbers system, but all that is merely
> > >> rationalization and doesn't help.
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> Over time, the result generally is that these developers' changes get
> > >> ignored. And that's not a good thing for the community as a whole. We
> > >> want to be a welcoming community and one which values all contributions
> > >> so I'm looking for some suggestions and guidance on how one can work
> > >> with contributors to try and improve the quality of these changes, and
> > >> help the contributor feel that their changes are valued by the project?
> > >> Other more experienced PTL's, ex-PTL's, long time open-source-community
> > >> folks, I'm seriously looking for suggestions and ideas.
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> Any and all input is welcome, do other projects see this, how do you
> > >> handle it, is this normal, ...
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> Thanks!
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> -amrith
> > >>
> > >
> > > cheers,
> > >
> > 
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