Re: [wtp-incubator-dev] Begging of The End?

["Konstantin Komissarchik" <konstantin.komissarchik@xxxxxxxxxx>]

> but it has always been the policy

Whose policy? I don't mean to be dense, but having hoops to jump through is
contrary to the underlying principles for the incubator project. The
incubators work the best when any party can gain access simply by stating
their intentions. See e4. What if there was zero code and just an idea? What
if the code was started and then the decision was made to continue working
on it in the open? It maybe ugly as heck with zero unit tests. Note that I
don't know anything about this contribution or have any reason to doubt the
quality of the code. Asking hypotheticals here.

What I have seen here is an earnest effort to be open. A proposal was
circulated and commented on. There was even a brief discussion at one of the
wtp meetings. There is no possible justification for throwing up roadblocks.
All that it does is hurt the viability of this incubator.

Expectations of code quality, unit tests, track record, etc all have their
place. Just not for incubator projects.

I actually think it's rather silly to vote on committers for proposed
incubator components. It should be sufficient for PMC to accept the
proposal. However EDP doesn't allow that, so we go through this unnecessary
step. There hasn't been much call to fix that in EDP, because so far the
social norms have been sufficient and existing incubator committers
understanding the purpose of the project have been welcoming (those who
bothered to vote). Of course, when social norms break down, the process may
need to be fixed.

What I suspect is happening here is that we have several components in the
incubator that have been there for a long time and have reached certain
levels of process maturity, even if they aren't ready to graduate for one
reason or another. The needs of these projects aren't in line with the needs
of incoming parties looking for a welcoming playground to experiment in WTP
area. I have suggested this to PMC and I will suggest it here too. Perhaps
it is time for certain components that presently live in the incubator to
spin of as separate projects. 

- Konstantin


-----Original Message-----
From: David Carver [mailto:d_a_carver@xxxxxxxxx] 
Sent: Thursday, August 26, 2010 8:36 AM
To: WTP Incubator Dev list
Cc: Konstantin Komissarchik
Subject: Re: [wtp-incubator-dev] Begging of The End?

  Konstantin,

Actually, I'm going to back Holger on this precisely because the bug was 
not created.

Yes, the WTP Incubator was created for the reasons you mention, but it 
has always been the policy that

1. A bug report should be opened, and the code attached to it for review 
and comment.

2. That their be a proposal made for the WTP Incubator project (this was 
done correctly).

All of the other incubator projects had to go through this process.   
Including wst.xsl which was the first
incubator project.    The bug report in step one gives the community 
even more visibility into the creation of what
is happening, how things are potentially going to be setup (i.e. whether 
git or cvs is going to be the repo, as all current
incubator projects use git), how the system will be built, etc.

All important things to discuss so that the existing committers can make 
an informed decision.

The process helps bring some checks and balances.    This will be slight 
bump, in the process, but I think it is important that
any incubator component, have to follow all the steps and trials that 
the other components had to go through as well
regardless of who is submitting the request or the code for incubation.

Dave

On 08/26/2010 07:41 AM, Konstantin Komissarchik wrote:
> Holger,
>
> I am not sure why you've started this crusade, but it is clear to me that
> you've managed to miss the entire point of the WTP incubator. It exists
> precisely to have no entry barriers. It supposed to encourage people with
> new ideas and half-finished projects in WTP space to come work on them in
> the open and gain experience of being a committer safely away from
> production code.
>
> EDP does not account for persistent incubator projects. They are
technically
> not allowed, because they don't have a well defined scope and never
mature.
> Persistent incubators have sprung up as a grass roots idea using social
> norms rather than EDP as the guiding principle. EMO has largely looked the
> other way, because they work so well.
>
> WTP incubator has been pretty active (although it has yet to produce much
> that is merged upstream). Let's not kill the spark that makes it work.
Your
> defense of the process is misplaced in this project.
>
> - Konstantin
>
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