Community-Help for the core-team in deadline-times

[Martijn Verburg]

Hi Dalibor,

On 27 November 2015 at 13:14, dalibor topic <dalibor.topic at oracle.com>
wrote:

> On 25.11.2015 09:58, Martijn Verburg wrote:
>
>> Hi Dalibor,
>>
>> The intention definitely wasn't to track people (which I agree is
>> counter productive), but the patch itself. I don't think there's even an
>> assignment to a particular person process for a patch right?  I was
>> thinking more a case of "Contributor X followed all the right procedures
>> and is now waiting for *any* reviewer within project Y".
>>
>
> 'Contributor X' - is a person that typically did not give consent to be
> tracked. That's the problem I mentioned before.
>

Oh this would very much only be for people who wanted to have their patch
helped through by this group, much like Sebastian asking for help...


> In general, though, I think that such tracking would be just a huge waste
> of time, based on data at hand.
>
> Looking at
> http://markmail.org/search/?q=list%3Anet.java.openjdk+-list%3Anet.java.openjdk.distro-pkg-dev+-from%3Aoracle.com+order%3Adate-backward+extension%3Apatch+OR+extension%3Adiff#query:list%3Anet.java.openjdk%20-list%3Anet.java.openjdk.distro-pkg-dev%20-from%3Aoracle.com%20order%3Adate-backward%20extension%3Apatch%20OR%20extension%3Adiff+page:1+mid:b2z5ettvkyqfye4q+state:results
> (query on OpenJDK mailing lists archived at Markmail with the exception of
> distro-pkg-dev for threads where there is a diff or patch attached to an
> e-mail and the e-mail does not come from someone @oracle.com ) leads me
> to believe that in less than a handful of cases in 2015 a thread ended with
> someone sending in a patch and not getting a reply.
>
> That's across dozens of mailing lists and thousands of messages.


Perhaps it being a common topic of discussion at FOSDEM and other places is
a statistical aberration then...


> How about we split up the project mailing lists amongst the adoption
>> members to monitor for new people.
>>
>
> Would that help/work you think?
>>
>
> Not really.
>
> When an OCA is processed, a new Contributor gets a message that points
> them to someone who can answer their questions about contributing (e.g.
> me), asks them if they have been working with someone within the OpenJDK
> community already, points them to the contribution guide and mailing lists,
> and encourages them to introduce themselves on the discuss list.
>
> Obviously, someone deliberately skipping step 0 of the contributing guide
> at http://openjdk.java.net/contribute/ would not see that message, but,
> as a wise philosopher once said, "people are people". Following
> instructions is not everyone's cup of tea. [0]  ;)
>

Perhaps a reminder to that resource could be sent to new contributors.
Perhaps a week after they sign the OCA (or some other milestone).  As an
example I send out a monthly email to the valhalla-dev mailing list on
behalf of that project lead as a reminder on how best to contribute.
Perhaps we could offer that service to other projects (they can of course
say no).

Cheers,
Martijn