Pre-Assigning Tickets (was Re: [S2] Mess with WW-1942)

[Ted Husted <hu...@apache.org>]

As a rule, I would suggest that we avoid assigning tickets to
ourselves or to each other, or even to ourselves, until we have
actually, that minute, started work on the ticket. In an open
volunteer environment, pre-assigning tickets undermines volunteerism
and and promotes bottlenecking.

Pre-assigning tickets undermines volunteerism in two ways. First, it
discourages other volunteers from stepping up and working on the
ticket themselves. Second, it implies that the volunteer is not a
volunteer, but is now compelled to work on this ticket. Unfortunately,
we all have competing responsibilities to which the ASF takes a "back
seat", and it's hard to guarantee when we will be able to do
something, if we are not doing it right now.

The volunteerism problems then tend to create a bottleneck. Other
people shy away because it's been pre-assigned, and, often, the
pre-assignee can't work on it "now" because of competing
responsibilities.

A key concept is that everyone on the PMC is jointly and severally
responsible for the code. We are all entitled, and encourged, to work
on any aspect of the codebase. We don't use the "maintainer" module,
and if one us can't work on something, then another one of us should
step up and take care of business.

-Ted.


On Nov 4, 2007 6:01 AM, Antonio Petrelli <an...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi all!
> I closed the WW-1942 because the remaining failing test case was not
> related to Java 6 and/or Windows, so I closed it and opened a new one.
> https://issues.apache.org/struts/browse/WW-2291
> I have to apologize Don (Brown) since I closed this issue, and I
> assigned him the new issue, but it was the only way to clean the
> ambiguity in the description of the issue and the real facts. Sorry
> Don!
>
> Ciao
> Antonio
>
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-- 
HTH, Ted <http://www.husted.com/ted/blog/>

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Re: Pre-Assigning Tickets (was Re: [S2] Mess with WW-1942)

[Antonio Petrelli <an...@gmail.com>]

2007/11/4, Ted Husted <hu...@apache.org>:
> As a rule, I would suggest that we avoid assigning tickets to
> ourselves or to each other, or even to ourselves, until we have
> actually, that minute, started work on the ticket. In an open
> volunteer environment, pre-assigning tickets undermines volunteerism
> and and promotes bottlenecking.
>
> Pre-assigning tickets undermines volunteerism in two ways. First, it
> discourages other volunteers from stepping up and working on the
> ticket themselves. Second, it implies that the volunteer is not a
> volunteer, but is now compelled to work on this ticket. Unfortunately,
> we all have competing responsibilities to which the ASF takes a "back
> seat", and it's hard to guarantee when we will be able to do
> something, if we are not doing it right now.
>
> The volunteerism problems then tend to create a bottleneck. Other
> people shy away because it's been pre-assigned, and, often, the
> pre-assignee can't work on it "now" because of competing
> responsibilities.
>
> A key concept is that everyone on the PMC is jointly and severally
> responsible for the code. We are all entitled, and encourged, to work
> on any aspect of the codebase. We don't use the "maintainer" module,
> and if one us can't work on something, then another one of us should
> step up and take care of business.

Ted, I didn't want to pre-assign tickets to anyone, only assign the
ticket to Don, who was assigned in the previous ticket.
Anyway I noticed that Don took the previous ticket a long ago (24
May), so now I remove the assignment.

Sorry
Antonio

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