[TYPO3-core] Review system woes

[Oliver Hader]

Hi everybody,

thanks for all comments and remarks on that topic and also the
side-notes that have been put to this very thread. We should close this
discussion at this point since I guess the most relevant points have
been mentioned already.

This is the summary of the revealed topics:

1) Reviews
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a) Difficulties on reproducing a particular issue due to missing details
b) Lack of (positive) reviews by Core Team Members
c) Strict Rules vs. Sensible Rules on descriptions
d) Review Queue with a limited amount of pending RFCs

Some possible solutions at this time:

* Review Days: Benni already started an initiative similar to previous
  Bug Days to basically concentrate on reviews instead on bug fixes.
  The scheduled date is *Friday, February 22nd 2013* and open for all
* Change in Core Team Structure: Since the community is flexible, the
  permissions ("commit/submit karma") needs to be flexible as well, thus
  there are plans to restructure the current scenario and as one effect,
  give more power to active (long-term) contributors. A detailed draft
  on that will follow - but let's do it step-by-step and not all at once

2) VCS Procedure (Git/Gerrit)
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a) Backport and priority definitions (e.g. LTS vs. master)
b) Backport of "non-destructive" changes, e.g. Hooks
c) Git and Gerrit is too complicated to be set up
d) Fork on GitHub

Some possible solutions at this time:

* Tutorial: Check the current documentation on Git/Gerrit again and
  take care of parts that have been identified by the community as
  difficult to understand and implement.
* Screencast: Create screencasts to visualize the process for particular
  topice (set-up, review, modify a patch, etc.)
* Guidlines: Add guideline on backports to a prominent place and
  describe possible backport scenarios. There cannot be strict rules
  for that, since each backport depends on the particular change - e.g.
  backporting FAL to TYPO3 4.5 LTS does not make sense.
* GitHub: We already have a synchronized repository at GitHub that can
  be used by anyone to be forked and used for experimental individual
  works. But, in the end changes (if they shall be included to the
  Core) need to be pushed back to review.typo3.org in order to have
  accordant reviews and our QA stack available.
  The GitHub repository can be found at:
  https://github.com/TYPO3/TYPO3v4-Core

3) Communication
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a) Create awareness for important changes
b) Communicate early about plans and ideas

Some possible "solutions" at this time:

* Culture: Communication is important, but on the other side it recently
  happens that ideas are turned down or blocked by possible doubts. We
  need to establish a culture (again) where discussion is focussed on
  goals and solutions and also inherits trust towards developers.

4) Expectations and Trust
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That's actually my personal topic on what I extracted from the posts and
what has not been explicitly mentioned. But it shows that expectations
on a particular team (Core Team, Documentation Team, Security Team, XYZ
Team) are high. Besides that trust in a particular change and that it
will turn into something better (or even "great") is low.

Some possible solutions at this time:

* Meetings: Have more regular (online) meetings to discuss those things
  and to gain more insight (transparency) in particular topics - public.

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Hopefully you will agree that the mentioned topics are discussed
internally first (basically that's the task of the Team Leaders in
interaction with the Community Manager) and then will be presented again
as suggestions/drafts to the public.

If you have doubts, ideas or anything to add, don't hesitate to get in
contact with me directly (oliver at typo3.org or via Skype at oliverhader).

Thanks!

Cheers,
Olly
-- 
Oliver Hader
TYPO3 CMS Core Team Leader

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