proxy maintenance (was: Re: [VOTE] mod_proxy in?)

[Greg Stein <gs...@lyra.org>]

On Thu, Apr 19, 2001 at 11:36:12AM -0700, Ian Holsman wrote:
> my only concen with splitting the proxy out is that
> no one will actively maintain it, and keep it up to date
> with the current http releases.

This is the reason that is was split off in the first place. Just being in
the httpd repository does not suddenly make it maintained. Far from it. In
fact, it was lagging so poorly, that for months at a time, the only changes
were to keep it compiling. *compiling* ... not necessarily *working*.

In fact, jettisoning it from httpd is (IMO) the only reason that we've seen
*any* activity on it the past couple months.

> saying that i'm quite happy to volunteer myself to do this function,
> but i'm not an ASF member, or even have commit access for that matter.

Sign up on the mod proxy development list. You can maintain it by posting
your patches. If the patches are good quality, and your contribution seems
to be relatively consistent, then you can get commit access.

Part of the reason that proxy wasn't getting maintained is that the httpd
folks have a different bar for commit access. Commit access was for *all* of
the web server, not just mod_proxy. By splitting it out, then the mod_proxy
developers can be an entirely different/disjoint set of people from httpd.
That has allowed people like Graham Leggett to join in on the proxy dev,
where we were initially not comfortable with providing him access to all of
the web server.

You can work exactly the same way. Commit access is (typically) dependent
entirely on technical merit and longevity.

Cheers,
-g

-- 
Greg Stein, http://www.lyra.org/

Re: proxy maintenance (was: Re: [VOTE] mod_proxy in?)

[Graham Leggett <mi...@sharp.fm>]

Greg Stein wrote:

> In fact, jettisoning it from httpd is (IMO) the only reason that we've seen
> *any* activity on it the past couple months.

Nope - the main reason is that for the last month or so I had made
arrangements to work on the proxy full time, something I was not able to
do before because of schedule.

For a long time the proxy code was being ignored because it was behind
the rest of v2.0 development and slowly became too big a job for most of
the other developers to take on. It took a big push to get the thing up
to date. Now that it is up to date it will need very little modification
apart from bugfixes. It's based on RFC2616 after all, which is a pretty
stable document.

This of course doesn't stop Chuck adding his new stuff to the proxy, or
further ideas being worked on, the point is that once it works it works,
and there isn't a need to change the proxy simply for the sake of
keeping the appearance that it is being maintained. Of course if it
stops working (because of a bug, or a change elsewhere in the server)
then it would be expected that a fix be forthcoming as quick as any
other bit of the webserver.

> Part of the reason that proxy wasn't getting maintained is that the httpd
> folks have a different bar for commit access. Commit access was for *all* of
> the web server, not just mod_proxy. By splitting it out, then the mod_proxy
> developers can be an entirely different/disjoint set of people from httpd.

This helped a whole bunch - because the rewrite involved some big
patches, which the main core Apache team are allergic to :)

Regards,
Graham
-- 
-----------------------------------------
minfrin@sharp.fm		"There's a moon
					over Bourbon Street
						tonight..."