[Development] Nominating Iikka Eklund as approver

Koehne Kai Kai.Koehne at digia.com
Thu Jan 24 14:12:17 CET 2013


> -----Original Message-----
> From: development-bounces+kai.koehne=digia.com at qt-project.org
> [mailto:development-bounces+kai.koehne=digia.com at qt-project.org] On
> Behalf Of Oswald Buddenhagen
> Sent: Thursday, January 24, 2013 12:17 PM
> To: development at qt-project.org
> Subject: Re: [Development] Nominating Iikka Eklund as approver
> 
> On Wed, Jan 23, 2013 at 01:32:09PM +0000, Koehne Kai wrote:
> > Parts of the packaging process is in gerrit (namely qtsdk/qtsdk.git),
> 
> > so he should be really  be able to stage things :)
> >
> uh, wtf?! nothing against iikka specifically (couldn't judge it), but this is so
> totally *not* a reason to make someone an approver. in areas where no
> approvers typically operate (mostly playground projects), we create special-
> purpose groups where the involved people have the rights they need to get
> the work done. approver status is supposed to be earned by displaying
> reasonably universal competence within the project, not being the only guy
> available to check +2 in a particular area.

I guess giving Iikka local approver privileges for qtsdk.git would cut it, too. Anyhow, you might then start to wonder whether anyone who's an approver for qt-creator necessarily needs approver rights for qtwebkit, qt-creator etc ... I think it's reasonable to expect that people exercise their approver rights with care, and only use it were appropriate.
 
> fwiw, this is not the only nomination in recent times that makes me scratch
> my head ...

Yes, seems we've not yet a common understanding of the actual requirements for becoming an approver. My personal check list would be:

 - has the person the technical skill to be able to judge other people's contributions in his area of interest & expertise?
   - does he know about coding style, commit style etc?
   - does he follow the relevant mailing lists closely enough to be informed about changes & global announcements?
   - does he know which branches one should commit to?
 - has the person shown in the past that he's reasonable , and can one expect to exercise his rights with care?
 - is it expected that the person will continue to contribute? 
 - finally, does the project as such gain anything if he gets an approver? F.ex., does he review fixes were there's no (official or de-facto) maintainer that wants to review the same changes anyway?

All of this should be seen in the context of the area of interest & expertise. A person developing Qt Declarative for instance doesn't have to necessarily follow the qt-creator mailing list, nor know which branch to commit to there. A person working on docs doesn't have to know the details of the C++ coding style, but if you're approving doc changes you better know qdoc. And so on and so on.

I think all of the above can be checked for Iikka for the area of packaging, so I don't see a reason for him not becoming an approver.

Regards

Kai

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