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Date:      Sun, 22 Feb 1998 16:02:28 -0700
From:      Nate Williams <nate@mt.sri.com>
To:        "Jordan K. Hubbard" <jkh@time.cdrom.com>
Cc:        Nate Williams <nate@mt.sri.com>, Terry Lambert <tlambert@primenet.com>, current@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: More breakage in -current as a result of header frobbing. 
Message-ID:  <199802222302.QAA25689@mt.sri.com>
In-Reply-To: <27525.888172295@time.cdrom.com>
References:  <199802221752.KAA24429@mt.sri.com> <27525.888172295@time.cdrom.com>

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> > We can't have it both ways.  Either we have an *enforced* policy of
> > actually punishing offenders (which may offend them and cause them to
> > run away), or we don't have any policy at all and so claiming to have
> 
> I'd rather not have a policy based on punishment.

Punishment?  Is it worse to 'punish' our users and developers by
requiring them them to deal with broken trees all the time.  IMHO,
doling out the occasion 'trivial' punishment of removing someones commit
privs for a time is much less punishment.

> We're supposed to be doing this for fun and the joy of making a good
> OS, and hitting people with sticks is not conducive to that.

It's supposed to be fun, but dealing with brokeness and answering lots
of questions about broken build trees is *NOT* alot of fun.

> > We got here by people who put out quality/tested software.  This appears
> > to no longer be as important as it once was to many people, including
> > many people in core.
> 
> I think you're reading rather too much into this.  I'm willing to
> concede that there's a problem, but I don't see this as indicative of
> a general decline in core team quality.

That's not my point.  My point is that the folks who are held up as
'shining examples' of dedication to the project aren't even willing to
test their own code.  How can we expect the users to expect things to
work when core cannot even police itself.

> These things tend to be more cyclic than anything else and we'd appear
> to be on the down side of the cycle right now.  Hope springs eternal
> that this will begin climbing upwards again as various folks become
> suitably chastened about breakage.

I will hope with you as well, but experience has shown that things have
*NOT* gotten better, but instead worse w/regards to the frequency and
severity of brokeness in the tree.


Nate

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