[coreboot] [RFC] Time until patches should be submitted (was: Document for review: coreboot Gerrit Etiquette and Guidelines)

[David Hendricks]

On Tue, Nov 3, 2015 at 1:36 PM, Paul Menzel <
paulepanter at users.sourceforge.net> wrote:

> Dear coreboot folks,
>
>
> Am Donnerstag, den 29.10.2015, 12:55 -0600 schrieb Martin Roth:
> > As the community has grown, so has the need to formalize some of the
> > guidelines that the community lives by. When the community was small,
> > it was easy to communicate these things just from one person to
> > another.
>
> first of, big thanks go to Martin for writing up the draft!
>
> […]
>
> > Expectations contributors should have:
> > --------------------------------------
> > * Don't expect that people will review your patch unless you ask them
> > to. Adding other people as reviewers is the easiest way. Asking for
> > reviews for individual patches in the IRC channel, or by sending a
> > direct request to an individual through your favorite messenger is
> > usually the best way to get a patch reviewed quickly.
> > * Don't expect that your patch will be submitted immediately after
> > getting a +2. As stated previously, non-trivial patches should wait
> > at least 24 hours before being submitted.
>
> to get some context, at the coreboot conference in Bonn some people
> asked for longer review time to not wake up the next morning seeing
> something changed.
>
> Even then, especially for non-payed developers, I think it’s hard to
> stay up to date, so the question is, if the time is long enough. On IRC
> somebody even mentioned, that patches should stay up for review for *a
> week* before getting merged, so there is enough time people can notice
> this.
>
> To not complicate rules, it probably would be easiest to just ask
> around if people are alright with 24 hours. Especially, when people
> working on the code get added as reviewers, this should be alright.
>
> On the other hand, more complicated rules could be drafted. The
> following rules just deal with the time issue. I am assuming, that +2
> has been given before and the appropriate announcements are made.
>
> 1. Commits just touching a board can be submitted after 24 hours.
> 2. Commits touch more boards, should stay up for review for a week.
> They can be submitted earlier if an announcement to the list about the
> urgency has been sent and at least two people have given +2.
>

There's a catch-22 here: The kinds of patches that could benefit from >24
hours in limbo also tend to be the disruptive kinds that may require
additional rebasing or changes should they remain in code review for too
long. A lot can happen in a week and disruptive patches bitrot faster than
normal ones.

24 hours should be considered a minimum, but I'd say "preferably a few days
if possible." A >24hr grace period can be agreed upon by reviewers and the
author depending on the complexity to mitigate bitrot.

-- 
David Hendricks (dhendrix)
Systems Software Engineer, Google Inc.
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