Re: [boost] [V1.46][Spirit] request for late minute changes to release branch

Subject: Re: [boost] [V1.46][Spirit] request for late minute changes to release branch
From: Eric Niebler (eric_at_[hidden])
Date: 2011-01-25 03:37:18

On 1/25/2011 2:28 PM, Vladimir Prus wrote:
> On Tuesday, January 25, 2011 04:05:22 Eric Niebler wrote:
>>> All tests (those, which caught up) are green, which makes me 
>>> believe we did the right thing.
>> 
>> (cc'ing the other release managers)
>> 
>> Hartmut, you had your answer from the release managers,
> 
> Most of which, I presume, were just now CCed on this thread?

I responded to Hartmut because none of the other release managers did. I
shouldn't have to cc any release managers. This is standard stuff.
Volodya, you're free to follow the list and jump in whenever you feel
like it. In fact, please do. We have extra release managers because
*we're all busy* and we can't all follow the list. We answer what
questions we find unanswered.

>> ... pull the docs and poison the broken headers. But you didn't
>> like the answer, so you asked, "Really?" And when you still didn't
>> hear the answer you wanted, you went ahead and made your changes 
>> anyway. This is a serious breach of protocol. We can't have people 
>> making the changes that make them feel good willy-nilly just before
>> a release. C'mon, you know better than this. Please don't do that
>> again, or your changes will be reverted.
> 
> Eric,
> 
> technical and process issues aside, it seems to me that your reply
> has gone in the direction of personal attack.

That wasn't my intention. Hartmut, I personally offended you and I'm
sorry. I know you believed you were doing the right thing.

> It seems to me that Hartmut was acting in good faith, and therefore
> we should be talking about how to improve process (e.g. publishing
> your mobile number on boost.org, and I'm not kidding), rather then
> threatening to start a revert war or apply technical measures to
> prevent commits.

If it's OK to ignore the release procedures and the judgment of the
release managers, why have release managers at all? It's not a
rhetorical question.

Last release cycle, IIRC, merges were accidentally made by maintainers
who weren't aware of the release status. I suggested then that we should
physically lock down the release branch. Had that suggestion been taken,
we wouldn't be having this discussion now. Hartmut would have filed a
showstopper bug, submitted his patch, and had it acepted or rejected,
and that would have been the end of it.

-- 
Eric Niebler
BoostPro Computing
http://www.boostpro.com