Wireshark · Wireshark-dev: Re: [Wireshark-dev] Query on status of patches

["Douglas Pratley" <Douglas.pratley@xxxxxxxxxx>]

I'm lucky - I was being paid to do eight hours a day writing Wireshark
code for the first two months of the year. I quite understand that this
doesn't necessarily match up with the available time of the reviewers...
it also perhaps resulted in larger patches than would normally be
submitted.

As far as my original, concrete questions go, I am assuming that no-one
is currently, actively testing or reviewing either of the big patches
that I sent in.

It's just a shame from my point of view - management are reluctant to
give us development time to work on features we'd like when we then have
to throw them away or reintegrate after later releases. This leaves us
struggling to do stuff in our spare time - which makes us no different
to most others in the community. 

Oh well, I'll probably be posting a load of questions about getting an
environment working at home - when I get the time!

Cheers

Doug


-----Original Message-----
From: wireshark-dev-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:wireshark-dev-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of ronnie
sahlberg
Sent: 09 March 2007 09:40
To: Developer support list for Wireshark
Subject: Re: [Wireshark-dev] Query on status of patches

I know it is very frustrating when pathces and ideas are being ignored.

Please, for many of the developers of wireshark, wireshark is only an
interesting hobby for which time to commit is very limited.

Life and work situations affect time being available. This
unfortuantely results in situations like this.


Myself is as guilty as everyone else in being restricted in how much
spare time is available to commit to important items such as
discussions and patch reviews.

I have hopes I will be able to contribute much more time to these
issues once my work situation is resolved and I start my new job.




On 3/8/07, Richard van der Hoff <richardv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Douglas Pratley wrote:
> > I submitted two patches earlier this year:
> > ...
> > Can anybody tell me their current status? That is:
>
> To follow up what Doug has said, I have to say that I've found my
recent
> experiences in getting patches applied less than positive. Anders
> applied quite a few, but there was one particular patch which I had to
> ask _four_ times to be reviewed before anything happened. Whilst I
> understand that everyone is busy, I'd like to give the developer's
> perspective here and point out that it is incredibly frustrating to
> spend a few days working on a new feature, polishing a patch and
> submitting it, only to have it ignored. Nobody is suggesting that you
> should apply patches without appropriate review - even a reply
> explaining why the patch can't be reviewed right now would be
something.
> Ultimately you are only going to end up alienating your developer
base,
> which, particularly for a product like Wireshark with its millions of
> dissectors, would be a disaster.
>
> Might I suggest that what is needed is a change to the procedures for
> patch submission, review, and application. It seems to me that the
> current problem is that no individual committer has responsibility for
> reviewing and applying patches - so they tend to get ignored in the
hope
> that somebody else will have more time. How about if you required
> patches to be submitted to the Bugzilla, with the responsibility for
> different parts of the system divided amongst the committers? Then at
> least everybody could keep track of what's on the todo list, and
patches
> wouldn't get lost in the general noise of the mailing list as I fear
> they currently do.
>
> Anyway, it's not for me to tell you how to run your project, but I do
> think it's only fair to point out that if the status quo continues,
you
> are going to end up with a lot of frustrated developers.
>
> Regards,
>
> Richard
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>
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