linux-kernel - Re: How to improve the quality of the kernel?

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Date:	Sun, 17 Jun 2007 11:50:23 -0700
From:	"Natalie Protasevich" <protasnb@...il.com>
To:	"Adrian Bunk" <bunk@...sta.de>
Cc:	"Stefan Richter" <stefanr@...6.in-berlin.de>,
	"Michal Piotrowski" <michal.k.k.piotrowski@...il.com>,
	"Oleg Verych" <olecom@...wer.upol.cz>,
	"Linus Torvalds" <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>,
	"Andi Kleen" <andi@...stfloor.org>,
	"Rafael J. Wysocki" <rjw@...k.pl>,
	"Diego Calleja" <diegocg@...il.com>,
	"Chuck Ebbert" <cebbert@...hat.com>,
	"Linux Kernel Mailing List" <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
	"Andrew Morton" <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>
Subject: Re: How to improve the quality of the kernel?

On 6/17/07, Adrian Bunk <bunk@...sta.de> wrote:
> On Sun, Jun 17, 2007 at 06:26:55PM +0200, Stefan Richter wrote:
> > Adrian Bunk wrote:
> > >>> And we should be aware that reverting is only a workaround for the real
> > >>> problem which lies in our bug handling.
> > >> ...
> > >
> > > And this is something I want to emphasize again.
> > >
> > > How can we make any progress with the real problem and not only the
> > > symptoms?
> > ...
> >
> > Perhaps make lists of
> >
> >   - bug reports which never lead to any debug activity
> >     (no responsible person/team was found, or a seemingly person/team
> >     did not start to debug the report)
> >
> >   - known regressions on release,
> >
> >   - regressions that became known after release,
> >
> >   - subsystems with notable backlogs of old bugs,
> >
> >   - other categories?
> >
> > Select typical cases from each categories, analyze what went wrong in
> > these cases, and try to identify practicable countermeasures.
>
> No maintainer or no maintainer who is debugging bug reports is the
> major problem in all parts of your list.
>
> > Another approach:  Figure out areas where quality is exemplary and try
> > to draw conclusions for areas where quality is lacking.
>
> ieee1394 has a maintainer who is looking after all bug reports he gets.
>
> Conclusion: We need such maintainers for all parts of the kernel.
>

I noticed some areas are well maintained because there is an awesome
maintainer, or good and well coordinated team - and this is mostly in
the "fun" areas ;) But there are "boring" areas that are about to be
deprecated or no new development expected etc. It will be hard to get
a dedicated person to take care of such. How about having people on
rotation, or jury duty so to speak - for a period of time (completely
voluntary!) Nice stats on the report about contributions in non-native
areas for a developer would be great accomplishment and also good
chance to look into other things! Besides, this way "old parts" will
get attention to be be revised and re-implemented sooner. And we can
post "Temp maintainer needed" list...

--Natalie

> > Stefan Richter
>
> cu
> Adrian
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