[8998] in SIPB bug reports
Re: More housecleaning called for.
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Erik Nygren)
Mon Oct 6 21:22:43 2003
To: rax <rax@mit.edu>
cc: John Hawkinson <jhawk@mit.edu>, rax@mit.edu, ocschwar@mit.edu,
bug-sipb@mit.edu
In-reply-to: Your message of "Sat, 04 Oct 2003 02:49:23 EDT."
<20031004064923.GK32524@yiff.mit.edu>
Date: Mon, 06 Oct 2003 21:20:23 -0400
From: Erik Nygren <nygren@MIT.EDU>
I used to maintain tgif in the sipb locker, I believe. For a few
years the 4.x releases were not yet stable and didn't have terribly
much functionality over the 3.x releases so I was leaving the 3.x ones
in place. That said, that was a few years ago and as I don't really
use Athena workstations much anymore I've been exceedingly lame about
upgrading some pieces of software.
Anyone want to take over maintaining Tgif on Athena? :)
Erik
> Moved to sipb-discussion (we really need sipb-useless-wanking)
>
> On Sat, Oct 04, 2003 at 02:33:21AM -0400, John Hawkinson wrote:
> > rax <rax@MIT.EDU> wrote on Sat, 4 Oct 2003
> > at 02:30:33 -0400 in <20031004063033.GJ32524@yiff.mit.edu>:
> >
> > > I think this might have been less of a bug report and more an
> > > encouragement for someone who might not be on bug-sipb to get
> > > involved. I cannot speak for Omri, but that is how I read it.
> >
> > IMO, you should ask the maintainers of software to upgrade it first.
> > bug-sipb are the maintainers.
> > Asking to be involved in the process is reasonable, of course.
>
> If the program is six years out of date, I think bug-sipb had enough
> time that they don't get dibs on it anymore. I suppose you could argue
> ``no one asked'' but frankly I don't think the chain of command in SIPB
> services should be anywhere near as important as people doing shit,
> especially younger people. I also think that what you have said would
> be much more true for a particular software package than the sipb
> locker in general. If I maintain the assbarn locker and you randomly
> decide to upgrade to assbarn 8.7, I find it reasonable to consider you
> out of place. However, the sipb locker holds many different software
> packages maintained by various people, and no change in six years
> suggests that whoever might have been maintaining this application
> probably doesn't love it anymore. However, mailing bug-sipb and saying
> "I think we should try to get a prospective to do this thing, does
> anyone disagree?" is probably a fine thing, as long as no annoying
> cruft decide to do the thing in response to the email.
>
> >
> > > It does seem like a good opportunity for someone to learn how to
> > > deal with locker software, especially if someone more experienced
> > > like Omri or even yourself were to help them through the process.
> >
> > Generally we don't encourage learning to deal with locker software
> > in the sipb locker, because a mistake can have severe ramifications;
> > instead, we try to constrain experimentation and learning to places
> > like the outland locker, without the same support guarantee.
>
> This is an excellent point, and why I think someone learning with such
> a project should be supervised by someone more experienced, possibly
> including building the software in the outland locker first.
>
> rax
>
