Re: The purpose of the core team

On 12 June 2015 at 06:48, Noah Misch <noah(at)leadboat(dot)com> wrote:

> On Thu, Jun 11, 2015 at 03:47:06PM -0300, Alvaro Herrera wrote:
> > Bruce Momjian wrote:
> > > http://www.postgresql.org/developer/core/
>
> > After going over this a few times, there is one thing that strikes me
> > that nobody has mentioned: the list of tasks mentioned there has one
> > that's completely unlike the others. These are related to human
> > relations:
> >
> > Acting as a conduit for confidential communication.
> > Making policy announcements.
> > Managing permissions for commits, infrastructure, etc.
> > Handling disciplinary issues.
> > Making difficult decisions when consensus is lacking.
> >
> > while this one is highly technical:
> > Coordinating release activities.
>
> Quite so. Deciding "it's time for a release" requires the same knowledge
> and
> skills as deciding "it's time to commit patch P", yet we have a
> special-case
> decision procedure. A release does require people acting in concert for a
> span of a few days, but that precise scheduling is work for an
> administrative
> assistant, not work befitting -core.

Deciding "WHAT goes in the next release?" is what Committers do, by
definition.

It seems strange to have a different mailing list for "WHEN is the next
release needed?", so those two things should be combined.

> > It seems that only this last one is where most people seem to have a
> > problem. I wonder if it makes sense to create a separate group that
> > handles release activites -- the "release team."
>
> I think the decision to initiate or revoke release scheduling belongs in
> the
> same forum as patch development, usually -hackers or -security. We'd need
> to
> pick a way to clearly signal the discussion's conclusion, analogous to how
> a
> pushed commit unambiguously disposes a patch proposal. The balance of
> coordinating release activities is mechanical, and -packagers seems
> adequate
> for it.

Packagers should be about "HOW do we make the next release", which is
separate from the above.

Ultimately, "How" effects "When", but "When is it needed?" is an earlier
thought.

--
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