Re: On issues that are marked as 'Patch_Abandoned'

[Trevor Daniels]

I think the end-point of this discussion looks like consensus, and that's 
pretty well what I've been doing to tidy up some inactive issues.  Let's see 
how it looks as a patch to the CG.

Trevor

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "James Lowe" <address@hidden>
To: "lilypond-devel" <address@hidden>
Cc: "Trevor Daniels" <address@hidden>; "David Kastrup" <address@hidden>; "simon 
Albrecht" <address@hidden>
Sent: Saturday, November 21, 2015 7:14 PM
Subject: On issues that are marked as 'Patch_Abandoned'


> Hello,
> 
> 
> 
> Trying to collate all the that David, Simon and Trevor kindly came up
> with (although may end up repeating myself, so my apologies in advance).
> I collated the main points from each of the three and have responded,
> inline, to those points.
> 
> I hope this isn't 'bad form' but the thread was so interlaced with
> comments and comments of comments, I wanted to make sure that I didn't
> misrepresent or misunderstand anyone.
> 
> ***
> 
> [David K]
> A whole bunch of the issues you have below are for Duplicate, Invalid,
> or independently Fixed issues. An abandoned patch is natural to go with
> that and should not require any additional action. It's only for open
> issues that an abandoned patch might form a point of reference.
> 
> [JAMES]
> What I would like to perhaps suggest here is that those that are
> Duplicate, Invalid or Independently fix (i.e. also technically a
> duplicate I suppose) can keep those 'Status' entries but the 'Patch'
> entry can be moved to 'blank'.
> 
> [David K]
> The only suspicious combination is an abandoned patch for a Started
> issue where the issue owner is the same person responsible for the
> patch. That's likely an oversight (or the owner tried to work on a
> different patch and lost track at some point of time).
> 
> [JAMES]
> Which sounds reasonable. Hence the point about removing the Patch entry
> (i.e. setting it to blank) and making sure the Status field is set
> accordingly (Invalid or Duplicate).
> 
> [David K]
> I don't think abandoned patches require any action of their own.
> "Started" issues may independently be considered as not being worked on
> after a considerable amount of time.
> 
> [JAMES]
> Would 9 months be acceptable as a 'considerable amount of time'? I can
> then start on trying to make sure that I go back as far as necessary
> (i.e. everything before April/May of this year) and then try to keep on
> top of it each month thereafter; trying to make sure that issues marked
> 'abandoned' are never older than 6 months.
> 
> [David K]
> In that case, it might get disowned, reset to "Accepted" (when it's
> still relevant) and _possibly_ any existing patch may be marked
> "abandoned" in that process.
> 
> [JAMES]
> Certainly it should get set to 'blank' owner I think (and put back to
> 'Accepted'). Anything younger than 9 months (see my last comment above)
> would still be marked as 'abandoned' (if not already). If the previous
> owner disagrees or still wants to 'own' the issue (whatever that may
> mean for them) then they can always update the ticket accordingly. This
> would have two effects; first the issue would be 'updated' in terms of
> its 'last edited' date (so to speak) bringing it forward from any
> 6-month-or-older filter, and secondly the Issue would have an entry -
> either just the Owner and Status change and/or a 'I am still working on
> this' entry in the thread. This puts the onus back on the developer and
> if they choose to do nothing, then that can be assumed to remove doubt
> on the state of the issue for others who may want to work it or who may
> be ignoring it, thinking that the other developer is still doing
> something (Graham P's universal 'Law of the 'Hot Potato'!)
> 
> [David K]
> But I don't think that any patch already marked "abandoned" necessitates
> any further action on its own.
> 
> [JAMES]
> Well I think that 'depends' (see my previous replies above for my
> reasoning).
> 
> ***
> 
> [Simon A]
> One can see immediately that a patch has already been prepared for this
> issue, which may serve as a starting point for future work. True,
> anybody to pick up such an issue would have to read through the entire
> discussion anyway, but I’d rather ask the other way round:
> What’s the benefit of deleting the Patch label, or the harm that a
> Patch:abandoned does?
> 
> [JAMES]
> My further thoughts on what I said before were if a patch was only
> abandoned because a developer gave up or ran out of time (or something
> similar to that) other than the fact it was 'Invalid' or 'Duplicate';
> then I think there is no benefit of being left with the 'Patch
> abandoned' label and that it might - subconsciously or otherwise - cause
> other potential developers to 'ignore' the issue simply because of
> having that label (I don't know how developers' minds work in that
> regard I must admit). So *not* having, or rather, putting the Patch back
> to 'blank', I think, always gains something at least psychologically.
> 
> I hope that made sense?
> 
> [Simon A]
>> [David K] Status is independent of Patch status.
> True, I did myself make some thoughts on merging those two fields: i.e.
> replacing Status:Started by Status:Patch_new etc. After all,
> Status:Fixed would be a fitful successor to Status:Patch_push.
> Status:Patch_abandoned would mark an issue as ‘suspended’.
> I came to the conclusion that it wasn’t worth the effort of updating all
> the DB.
> 
> [JAMES]
> Not so much that, as having yet another status ('suspended') doesn't
> gain us anything think. We already have 'Waiting' - which is something
> that I don't really think is clear either (but that is for another time,
> I want to just get 'Patch Abandoned' sorted first).
> 
> 
> ****
>> [James] The 'new' status was for those issues that had been added by
> random Joes
>> (not members of the bug squad) and then it was changed to 'Accepted'
>> once the issue was checked - else it would be marked invalid or
>> duplicate (or even merged). If we're going to keep 'blank' then we could
>> even do way with the 'new' status.
>>
>>
>>      
>>> [Simon] True, I did myself make some thoughts on merging those two
> fields: i.e.
>>> replacing Status:Started by Status:Patch_new etc. After all,
>>> Status:Fixed would be a fitful successor to Status:Patch_push.
> 
>> [James] Actually 'Fixed' could be also potentially removed as well and
> the label
>> Fixed_X_x_x be used in it's place.
> 
> [Simon] How would that fit into the workflow? IIUC, currently
> Status:Fixed is set by the developer.
> 
> [James]. Yes - or the committer.
> 
> [Simon] The bug squad member verifies and then sets Status:Verified and
> Label:Fixed_X_x_x. Label and Status should definitely not get mixed up,
> if you ask me.
> 
> [James] I don't think they would get mixed up - what I am (sort of)
> proposing is a way to 'reset' any incident that is not Invalid/Duplicate
> and is 'patch_abandoned' back to 'as if' had been 'Accepted' but had not
> been started. Patches that are Invalid/Duplicate would have the
> 'patch_abandoned' status, if it had one, removed and also any dev name,
> if there was one, as well.
> 
> ****
> 
> [Trevor]
> The key difference is one of ownership.  The LP developers have
> a tradition of not interfering (other than by commenting) on the development
> of a patch to an issue already "owned" by someone else.  Patch
> waiting/needs_work means the current owner is still planning to do more
> work, so other devs let it ride.  Patch abandoned means the previous
> dev has given up, so anyone else is free to take it up and change the
> ownership.  Well, at least that's my understanding.
> 
> [David]
> No, that's not entirely related.  I may give up on a particular approach
> to an issue, making it pointless to pursue a particular patch, but still
> want to cook up a different patch or solve the problem in the context of
> another issue.  Patch abandoned just means that the latest proposed
> patch is not going to be pursued further, not that the issue owner has
> given up on a particular problem altogether.
> 
> [Trevor]
> We don't really have a mechanism to handle multiple patches, so I think
> we can discount that possibility.
> 
> [David]
> Sorry, but that just does not match reality.  We have a host of issues
> where multiple patches have been proposed.  While we only assign a state
> to the latest patch with a reference in a comment, this state has a
> number of degrees of freedom independent from that of the issue.
> 
> [Trevor]
> We usually use Patch needs_work to
> cover the situation where the current patch is inadequate and further work
> is in progress.  I'd rather adopt my interpretation as a more useful use
> of this limited set of markers, namely that Patch abandoned really means,
> "I've given up on working on this issue and the current patch is now up for
> grabs for someone else to improve on it." 
> 
> [David]
> That's issue ownership.  And the difference between "Started" and
> "Accepted".
> 
> [Trevor]
> And I'd suggest an issue should
> be placed in this state by the Bug Squad if no action on it has been
> apparent
> by the current owner for over 6 months.
> 
> [James]
> The very least, I suppose, that dev who was still 'pursuing' a different
> approach could be metaphorically kicked into stating their intentions in
> the issue itself if it appeared that the issue was stagnating with an
> out of date patch and no update for a period of time. I'm just about
> removing the doubt for other/new contributors.
> 
> [Trevor]
> OK, I can accept that.  So, to elaborate a little on James' post,
> the point of which is to enable some old inactive issues/patches
> to be cleared up, in the event of inaction for 6 months (say):
> 
>  Status:Started -> Status:Accepted
>  Owner -> ""
>  Patch: needs_work -> Patch:abandoned
> 
> So the final state of an issue which has been inactive for more
> than 6 months reverts to "Accepted" with no Owner, and the final
> state of the latest associated patch reverts to "abandoned" or
> remains "waiting", and in the latter case this should be qualified
> by the Needs field.  That makes it clear the issue is free to be
> picked up by someone else, either by starting from scratch or
> continuing to develop an earlier abandoned patch.
> 
> [James]
> I like that.
> 
> 
> On 20/09/15 15:01, David Kastrup wrote:
>> James Lowe <address@hidden> writes:
>>
>>>    Hello,
>>>    As part of the 'Patch Meister's' role, I present the following list of
>>>    all issues currently marked as 'patch_abandoned'.
>>>    I've grouped them into their patch 'Status' fields and then shown the
>>>    date that the last time the issue was updated.
>>>    For those that cannot remember, Issue classification definitions are
>>>    here:
>>>   
> [1]http://lilypond.org/doc/v2.19/Documentation/contributor-big-page#iss
>>>    ue-classification
>>>    We should make some decision on what to do with these. In my opinion,
>>>    the very least we should change the status to either 'new', 'invalid'
>>>    or 'blank'. My own feeling that we not use the 'patch_abandoned' label
>>>    anymore, in that if an Issue is 'abandoned', it is usually abandoned
>>>    because of
>>>    i. Dev has no more time or has given up working on the patch for a
>>>    'started' issue - perhaps set issue back to 'new' and remove patch
>>>    status label; but put a note in the thread that the patch was
>>>    abandoned.
>>>    ii. The issue has been shown to no longer be applicable (because of a
>>>    change in either the code base, or for example in the case of
> trying to
>>>    support some deprecated third-party code - like an OS or Browser etc.)
>>>    In which case this should probably be changed to 'Invalid' and be
> done.
>>>    Other than those two (variations on a theme) I cannot think of
> anything
>>>    other case.
>>
>> A whole bunch of the issues you have below are for Duplicate, Invalid,
>> or independently Fixed issues.  An abandoned patch is natural to go with
>> that and should not require any additional action.  It's only for open
>> issues that an abandoned patch might form a point of reference.
>>
>> The only suspicious combination is an abandoned patch for a Started
>> issue where the issue owner is the same person responsible for the
>> patch.  That's likely an oversight (or the owner tried to work on a
>> different patch and lost track at some point of time).  So basically
>> I don't think abandoned patches require any action of their own.
>> "Started" issues may independently be considered as not being worked on
>> after a considerable amount of time.  In that case, it might get
>> disowned, reset to "Accepted" (when it's still relevant) and _possibly_
>> any existing patch may be marked "abandoned" in that process.
>>
>> But I don't think that any patch already marked "abandoned" necessitates
>> any further action on its own.
>>
> 
> 
> -- 
> James
> 
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> 
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> 
> -- 
> James
> 
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> 
> B8F4 5395 CBE2 ED37 7513 B075 FF32 5682 A84B D8BE
>