Discussion on e-mail, please

["Noel J. Bergman" <no...@devtech.com>]

Guys,

I do understand how it happens that discussions get started on JIRA, but
let's please try to keep discussion on the mailing list, not embedded in
issues.

	--- Noel


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Re: Discussion on e-mail, please

[Danny Angus <da...@gmail.com>]

On 18/05/06, Stefano Bagnara <ap...@bago.org> wrote:
> If there is anything specific in your message about something happened,
> or the sentences were related to the above behaviour, then I would be
> happy to understand it better.

No there is *not* I am making a general point. I have made it before
and no doubt will make it again!.

> "Collaboration" does not mean that every task have to be done by all the
> people or approved by everyone: collaboration means that more than 1
> element in a group works for a common goal. In a collaboration effort
> people trust each other in respective activities.

Agreed, but that is only true where everyone has sight of what each
person is doing.


> Unfortunately there is no such thing named "developer" (in business
> meaning) that implement (obbey) what the architect decided. Here we are
> "contributor" and there is no boss, only the PMC vetoes: it seems easy
> enough and I hope we won't need anything more complicate than this.

Erm, yes there are, we are each both of those things, we are the
architect comittee and the developers.
As the architects we reach consensus decisions, as the developers we
implement them.

As individuals we don't reach independant decisions and the implement
them without refrence to the group.

> Communication is mostly needed when 2 or more developers works on the
> same thing in synchronous:

I disagree it is needed just as much when one person is working alone.
That person should be keeping everyone else up to date with their
actions and progress. "Lone programmer" is not an option, it destroy
communities and kills projects.

>this unfortunately does not happen too much
> in James. We all hope it will happens much more in future.


> I think we talk too much of this issues and write too few code.

That is your opinion, some of us have written code in the past, and no
longer have time to make as much of a contribution. But James is a
community, not just code, and ensuring that the community continues to
work is just as important. A project needs a community as much as it
needs code.

> Last thing: I really appreciate when my code is reviewed and I really
> appreciate to discuss on improvements or pro/cons or something I just
> committed, but this did non happen often (lack of time of the
> interlocutors, I think).

We have also come to trust you. :-)

d.

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RE: Discussion on e-mail, please

["Noel J. Bergman" <no...@devtech.com>]

Stefano Bagnara wrote:

> About comminication media I agree that having a single channel
> is better for all. As I said I think that commit notifications
> and JIRA notifications in the mailing list count for that.

Notification and discussion are not the same thing.

> I want to make clear that ALL of the commits I made on James in the
> last year are not the consequence

No one is accusing you, or anyone else, or doing otherwise.  Keep in mind
that this thread started because I saw a lot of discussion via JIRA, and
wanted to make sure that it got moved to mailing lists, where it belongs.
This is not about private discussions; just public ones via the wrong
medium.

> sometime I simply think about an issue and I try solving it while
> thinking [and] I explain what I did (most time in JIRA, because I
> always open JIRA issues for tasks I do).

That's not a discussion, so that's not an issue.  HOWEVER ... I don't mind
at all that the explanation goes into JIRA, but it really should be part of
the SVN commit message, too.  Having the commit records in one system and
the (only) commentary in another will be a huge problem in the long run.  It
is important to keep them together.  I don't say that you are alone in doing
this; I'm sure that I've done the wrong thing, too.  I'm pointing out that
this is a problem, and we should all be more aware of it.

> In a collaboration effort people trust each other in respective
activities.

We're saying that when there is a discussion, e-mail is the medium.  Again,
it is OK if we have some off-list discussion, but we need to bring it to
e-mail and include the community.

> Communication is mostly needed when 2 or more developers works on the
> same thing in synchronous

I disagree.  It is even MORE important when multiple developers are working
asynchronously.

	--- Noel


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Re: Discussion on e-mail, please

[Stefano Bagnara <ap...@bago.org>]

Danny Angus wrote:
> Apache keeps it simple by having one, and only one, way in which that
> communication "counts" and that is by using the mailinglists.

About comminication media I agree that having a single channel is better
for all. As I said I think that commit notifications and JIRA
notifications in the mailing list count for that.

About the commit-then-review I want to make clear that ALL of the
commits I made on James in the last year are not the consequence of an
offline conversation/discussion with anyone.

Sometimes we discussed things in the list, sometime I simply think about
an issue and I try solving it while thinking (this is my way to get the
job done), so while I work I understand what the problems are and I
search solutions: when I'm satisfied with the result I commit it,
because we use commit-then-review, and I explain what I did (most time
in JIRA, because I always open JIRA issues for tasks I do). There is no 
better summary for what I thought than what I committed ;-).

If there is anything specific in your message about something happened,
or the sentences were related to the above behaviour, then I would be
happy to understand it better.

"Collaboration" does not mean that every task have to be done by all the
people or approved by everyone: collaboration means that more than 1
element in a group works for a common goal. In a collaboration effort 
people trust each other in respective activities.

Unfortunately there is no such thing named "developer" (in business 
meaning) that implement (obbey) what the architect decided. Here we are 
"contributor" and there is no boss, only the PMC vetoes: it seems easy 
enough and I hope we won't need anything more complicate than this.

Communication is mostly needed when 2 or more developers works on the
same thing in synchronous: this unfortunately does not happen too much
in James. We all hope it will happens much more in future.

I think we talk too much of this issues and write too few code.

Last thing: I really appreciate when my code is reviewed and I really 
appreciate to discuss on improvements or pro/cons or something I just 
committed, but this did non happen often (lack of time of the 
interlocutors, I think).

Stefano


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Re: Discussion on e-mail, please

[Danny Angus <da...@gmail.com>]

On 18/05/06, Stefano Bagnara <ap...@bago.org> wrote:

> JIRA comments are sent to the server-dev list automatically, so I guess
> you refer to other media, right?

Yes, kind of. But..prolonged discussion of issues should really happen
on the list rather than in the comments, keep the comments for
sumarising the consensus of the list, rather than the other way about,
people can't *reply* to the emailed comments except by replying to the
list, so the conversation would break down. JIRA is an issue tracking
tool not a collaboration tool.This is a collaborative effort we MUST
communicate effectively.


> It seems to me that the only place where things has been written and not
> notified to the list is the Wiki stuff. IIRC no other media has been
> used to take decisions related to James and not submitted to the
> community debate.

Thats more or less true, but people do occasionally want to use things
like IRC or ICQ or private email or even face-to-face meetings and
hackathons to decide stuff. This is all OK as long as they present
their *opinions* to the list before suprising the people who aren't
involved in the original discussions. e.g.

"so-and-so and I are planning to look at the spool manager next week
when we are both at such-and-such to consider how to support featureX
"
... days later ...
"so-and-so and I did some work at such-and-such and have re-written
the spoolmanager in this way ...xxx.... because we thought ...xxx... I
will commit these changes over the next day or so if no one has any
questions or objections"

> Btw, as we use Commit-then-Review and as commits notifications are sent
> to the server-dev list I think that we are safe: community will always
> have the opportunity to be notified and review changes.

Yeah but if we have to rely on post-comit reviews to get sight of what
people are doing and *then* have to ask them why they did it and why
they chose one approach over another then the community is seriously
broken. We should all have a pretty good idea of what is being
proposed, or being done before we see commit messages. The commit
messages should get a response such as.. "Ah I see so-and-so is
checking in his work on XXX that he told us about" not "I wonder what
this code from so-and-so is trying to achieve, and why he has chosen
to use xyz to do it".

Projects like this are as much about people comunicating as they are
about code, features and issues.

Apache keeps it simple by having one, and only one, way in which that
communication "counts" and that is by using the mailinglists.


d.

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Re: Discussion on e-mail, please

[Stefano Bagnara <ap...@bago.org>]

Danny Angus wrote:
> Let me just re-iterate Noel's point. Email on the @james lists is the
> *only* official medium for discussing and making decisons related to
> this project.
> We will not tolerate decisions being made off-list without the
> opportunity for the whole developer community to review and contribute
> to the debates.

JIRA comments are sent to the server-dev list automatically, so I guess 
you refer to other media, right?

It seems to me that the only place where things has been written and not 
notified to the list is the Wiki stuff. IIRC no other media has been 
used to take decisions related to James and not submitted to the 
community debate.

Btw, as we use Commit-then-Review and as commits notifications are sent 
to the server-dev list I think that we are safe: community will always 
have the opportunity to be notified and review changes.

Stefano


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Re: Discussion on e-mail, please

[Danny Angus <da...@apache.org>]

On 16/05/06, Ahmed Mohombe <am...@yahoo.com> wrote:

> No one is saying to remove the E-Mail. Just extend it with that bridge.
> At the moment I'm posting from an NNTP (gmane.org), and it's much more comfortable than using the
> list in this "newsgroup" way than in the standard e-mail way.


Let me just re-iterate Noel's point. Email on the @james lists is the
*only* official medium for discussing and making decisons related to
this project.
We will not tolerate decisions being made off-list without the
opportunity for the whole developer community to review and contribute
to the debates.
Discussions elsewhere must be moved to or summarised on the list for
them to carry any weight at all.
Other gateways into our mailing-lists are not supported, but are not
discouraged either.


d.

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Re: Discussion on e-mail, please

[Ahmed Mohombe <am...@yahoo.com>]

>>> One of our challenges for the JAMES NNTP server, should people
>>> want to help revisit that code, would be to allow it to scale
>>> for millions of messages in huge message archives.
> 
>> Well, than it would be a perfect test case for JAMES NNTP.
> 
> The code needs a LOT of work.
If the NNTP needs a lot of work till it can be used even as test, than what's the
situation with JAMES as an email server?
Why isn't JAMES the default mailing server for Apache yet? At least as test?

>> I suppose Apache already has the hardware infrastructure
> 
> If we have a need, we can install software.
Than install JAMES for mailing services at least.

>> One could activate that JIRA+NNTP+bridge as a test
> 
> OK, once more: E-MAIL IS THE ONLY SANCTIONED DISCUSSION MEDIUM FOR THE ASF.
> Is that clear enough?
No one is saying to remove the E-Mail. Just extend it with that bridge.
At the moment I'm posting from an NNTP (gmane.org), and it's much more comfortable than using the
list in this "newsgroup" way than in the standard e-mail way.

Ahmed.


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RE: Discussion on e-mail, please

["Noel J. Bergman" <no...@devtech.com>]

Ahmed Mohombe wrote:

> > One of our challenges for the JAMES NNTP server, should people
> > want to help revisit that code, would be to allow it to scale
> > for millions of messages in huge message archives.

> Well, than it would be a perfect test case for JAMES NNTP.

The code needs a LOT of work.

> I suppose Apache already has the hardware infrastructure

If we have a need, we can install software.

> One could activate that JIRA+NNTP+bridge as a test

OK, once more: E-MAIL IS THE ONLY SANCTIONED DISCUSSION MEDIUM FOR THE ASF.
Is that clear enough?

	--- Noel


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Re: Discussion on e-mail, please

[Ahmed Mohombe <am...@yahoo.com>]

> One of our challenges for the JAMES NNTP server, should people want to help
> revisit that code, would be to allow it to scale for millions of messages in
> huge message archives.
Well, than it would be a perfect test case for JAMES NNTP. I suppose Apache already has the hardware 
infrastructure, so to install there JAMES by its authors shouldn't be either a problem, right?

One could activate that JIRA+NNTP+bridge as a test for at least some of the JIRA projects (it must 
not be for all of them right away - let's say only for JAMES :) ). Than if it's reliable to add more 
and and more projects, till all the JIRA projects go tru that bridge.

Ahmed.


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RE: Discussion on e-mail, please

["Noel J. Bergman" <no...@devtech.com>]

> There's a JIRA <-> NNTP interface.

Yes: http://confluence.atlassian.com/display/JIRAEXT/JIRA+NNTP+bridge

But the mailing lists are still the medium for discussion.  And there are a
lot of reasons for it.  Including significant technical obstacles with JIRA,
such as scale, security policies, etc.  Lots of things work in the small.
The ASF mailing lists generate millions of e-mails per day, and we maintain
archives indefinitely.

One of our challenges for the JAMES NNTP server, should people want to help
revisit that code, would be to allow it to scale for millions of messages in
huge message archives.

	--- Noel


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Re: Discussion on e-mail, please

[Ahmed Mohombe <am...@yahoo.com>]

> PS: I always thought it would be great if a plugin could integrate JIRA 
> and mailing list archives like the current JIRA-SVN integration. How 
> much would it be cool to look at mailing list threads that referred the 
> JIRA issue you're looking at?? ;-)
There's a JIRA <-> NNTP interface. It's used extensively by Jetbrains for their forums/mailing 
lists/newsgroup.
It's very efficient.

Ahmed.


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RE: Discussion on e-mail, please

["Noel J. Bergman" <no...@devtech.com>]

> I saw too much proposals discussed in the list and lost in few months,
> and too much important things lost in the list because people forgot to
> reply, or because they lost a message between others.

That may be, but e-mail is *the* sanctioned medium for discussion of the
ASF.  If you want to track summaries on the wiki, have a quick chat on IRC
or other, or track issue status on JIRA, fine.  But discussion is to be via
e-mail.  The policy exists to ensure that everyone can communicate
asynchronously, and often via disconnected means.  E-mail archives have
great longevity and are ubiquitous, unlike the flavor-of-the-month that
happens with other systems, including issues trackers (JIRA is the 4th one
that has been used at the ASF, and not likely to be the last).

> Do you see drawbacks [to discussion in JIRA]

Try reading and replying to JIRA while on an airplane.

> I always thought it would be great if a plugin could integrate JIRA
> and mailing list archives like the current JIRA-SVN integration.

Yes, we'd all like to have all of our information cross-linked and
itegrated.  That was the idea behind Lotus Notes.

You'll be happy to know that that has been talk about setting up forum
software linked to our mailing lists, but that would not integrate JIRA.
Another reason to focus discussion on our mailing lists, not the issue
tracker.

	--- Noel


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Re: Discussion on e-mail, please

[Stefano Bagnara <ap...@bago.org>]

Noel J. Bergman wrote:
> Guys,
> 
> I do understand how it happens that discussions get started on JIRA, but
> let's please try to keep discussion on the mailing list, not embedded in
> issues.
> 
> 	--- Noel

Hi Noel, I take this event to launch a proposal.

I saw too much proposals discussed in the list and lost in few months, 
and too much important things lost in the list because people forgot to 
reply, or because they lost a message between others.

To try to fix this, as you probably saw recenently, I started adding new 
JIRA issues even for proposals. I also have found myself attaching 
mailing list messages to JIRA issues to keep track of important stuff.

That said I would prefer if we use as much as possible JIRA to track 
things: JIRA issues are searchable like mail archives, but they contains 
much more metadata than mailing list archives.

JIRA issues have a status, they are linkable, assignable, votable, 
watchable, much more "durable" than mailing list threads.

I agree that JIRA is not the best for "instant" discussions and that 
"conversations" belongs to mailing lists, but I think that it would be a 
good practice if we try to integrate much more the 2 tools:
We can open JIRA issues much easier, try to keep conversations to the 
list (reply to the jira notification once they appear to the list) and 
eventually copy back important part of the thread to JIRA.

What do you think? Do you see drawbacks in this usage?

Stefano

PS: I always thought it would be great if a plugin could integrate JIRA 
and mailing list archives like the current JIRA-SVN integration. How 
much would it be cool to look at mailing list threads that referred the 
JIRA issue you're looking at?? ;-)


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