[MPlayer-dev-eng] [RFC] Policy update

[Roberto Togni]

On Sat, 07 Oct 2006 20:06:23 +0300
Uoti Urpala <uoti.urpala at pp1.inet.fi> wrote:

> On Sat, 2006-10-07 at 18:04 +0200, Roberto Togni wrote:
> > attached a proposed update for MPlayer policy, based on many events
> > from the last months.
> 
> > +12. Always send a patch to mplayer-dev-eng mailing list before committing if
> > +    you suspect that the change is going to be controversial. Based on past
> > +    experience, at least these changes are controversial:
> 
> I don't oppose a guideline about mailing list discussion for changes
> which are believed to be controversial (with some consideration given to
> the size and risk of the change - changes which are easy to revert and
> cannot cause serious breakage need less guarantee of consensus before

I disagree. imo "commit, and eventually reverse" is not the right way to
act.
And by looking at MPlayer history you'll find out that most (all?)
controversial patches were "technically" perfect, the disagreement was
political (opportunity, wording, reason, ...)

> applying). However the timing of this proposal combined with your cvslog
> mail suggests that you think my VIDIX message removal would have
> violated your proposed addition. I disagree: there was no reason to
> believe the change itself was controversial, and I've seen so reason to
> doubt the correctness of that decision afterwards either. You seem to
> have neither any argument against the patch itself nor a reason to
> believe that someone else would have one.

Your commit is what prompted me to send this patch, but I already had
a draft in my tree since some time.
Don't take this as a personal attack.

> 
> In summary I might not object to this if it's interpreted in the way I
> would interpret it; but if you mean a different interpretation which
> would be against for example the VIDIX commit then I do object.
> 
> > +13. Try to keep important discussions and requests (also) on mplayer-dev-eng
> > +    mailinglist, so that all developers can benefit from them.
> > +    Irc is good for quick discussions, but nodoby is there 24/7
> 
> This is too vague, at least if you mean it to include something which
> isn't already being done. Obviously it's good if important information
> that should be known by all developers is available on the mailing list.
> However just what is "important discussion"? And the "discussion" part
> can in some cases be more practically done on IRC, even if a summary is
> posted on the mailing list afterwards. You said this was based "on many
> events from the last months"; what would be examples of important things
> that should have been posted on the mailing list?

This paragraph was mainly inspired by some complaints about the "users
vs developers" removal in the docs, that was discussed only on IRC;
this may be useful also on technical subjects, but that was not the
main reason for it.

Ciao,
 Roberto