headers
Rob Lanphier | 15 Jun 2012 22:53
Picon
Gravatar

Revoking +2 (Re: who can merge into core/master?)

On Fri, Jun 15, 2012 at 8:48 AM, Sumana Harihareswara
<sumanah <at> wikimedia.org> wrote:
> If you merge into mediawiki/core.git, your change is considered safe for
> inclusion in a wmf branch.  The wmf branch is just branched out of
> master and then deployed. We don't review it again.  Because we're
> deploying more frequently to WMF sites, the code review for merging into
> MediaWiki's core.git needs to be more like deployment/shell-level
> review, and so we gave merge access to people who already had deployment
> access.  We have since added some more people.  The current list:
> https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/admin/groups/11,members

Let me elaborate on this.  As unclear as our process is for giving
access, it's even less clear what our policy is for taking it away.
If we can settle on a policy for taking access away/suspending access,
it'll make it much easier to loosen up about giving access.

Here's the situation we want to avoid:  we give access to someone who
probably shouldn't have it.  They continually introduce deployment
blockers into the code, making us need to slow down our frequent
deployment process.  Two hour deploy windows become six hour deploy
windows as we need time to fix up breakage introduced during the
window.  Even with the group we have, there are times where things
that really shouldn't slip through do.  It's manageable now, but
adding more people is going to multiply this problem as we get back
into a situation where poorly conceived changes become core
dependencies.

We haven't had a culture of making a big deal about the case when
someone introduces a breaking change or does something that brings the
db to its knees or introduces a massive security hole or whatever.
(Continue reading)

Permalink | Reply |
headers
Roan Kattouw | 16 Jun 2012 01:41
Picon

Re: Revoking +2 (Re: who can merge into core/master?)

On Fri, Jun 15, 2012 at 1:53 PM, Rob Lanphier <robla <at> wikimedia.org> wrote:
> It would also be nice if we didn't have to resort to the nuclear
> option to get the point across.  One low-stakes way we can use to make
> sure people are more careful is to have some sort of rotating "oops"
> award.  At one former job I had, we had a Ghostbusters Stay Puft doll
> named "Buster" that was handed out when someone broke the build that
> they had to prominently display in their office.  At another job, it
> was a pair of Shrek ears that people had to wear when they messed
> something up in production.  In both cases, it was something you had
> to wear until someone else came along.  Perhaps we should institute
> something similar (maybe as simple as asking people to append "OOPS"
> to their IRC nicks when they botch something).
>
whobrokeitthistime.wikimedia.org? :)

Roan
Permalink | Reply |
headers
K. Peachey | 16 Jun 2012 09:00
Picon
Gravatar

Re: Revoking +2 (Re: who can merge into core/master?)

On Sat, Jun 16, 2012 at 9:41 AM, Roan Kattouw <roan.kattouw <at> gmail.com> wrote:
> whobrokeitthistime.wikimedia.org? :)
>
> Roan

Point it to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:BLAMEWHEEL ?
Permalink | Reply |
headers
Andrew Garrett | 16 Jun 2012 06:20
Picon

Re: Revoking +2 (Re: who can merge into core/master?)

On Sat, Jun 16, 2012 at 6:53 AM, Rob Lanphier <robla <at> wikimedia.org> wrote:

> On Fri, Jun 15, 2012 at 8:48 AM, Sumana Harihareswara
> <sumanah <at> wikimedia.org> wrote:
> > If you merge into mediawiki/core.git, your change is considered safe for
> > inclusion in a wmf branch.  The wmf branch is just branched out of
> > master and then deployed. We don't review it again.  Because we're
> > deploying more frequently to WMF sites, the code review for merging into
> > MediaWiki's core.git needs to be more like deployment/shell-level
> > review, and so we gave merge access to people who already had deployment
> > access.  We have since added some more people.  The current list:
> > https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/admin/groups/11,members
>
> Let me elaborate on this.  As unclear as our process is for giving
> access, it's even less clear what our policy is for taking it away.
> If we can settle on a policy for taking access away/suspending access,
> it'll make it much easier to loosen up about giving access.
>
> Here's the situation we want to avoid:  we give access to someone who
> probably shouldn't have it.  They continually introduce deployment
> blockers into the code, making us need to slow down our frequent
> deployment process.  Two hour deploy windows become six hour deploy
> windows as we need time to fix up breakage introduced during the
> window.  Even with the group we have, there are times where things
> that really shouldn't slip through do.  It's manageable now, but
> adding more people is going to multiply this problem as we get back
> into a situation where poorly conceived changes become core
> dependencies.
>
> We haven't had a culture of making a big deal about the case when
(Continue reading)

Permalink | Reply |
headers
Dmitriy Sintsov | 16 Jun 2012 09:23
Picon
Favicon

Re: Revoking +2 (Re: who can merge into core/master?)

On 16.06.2012 8:20, Andrew Garrett wrote:
> On Sat, Jun 16, 2012 at 6:53 AM, Rob Lanphier<robla <at> wikimedia.org>  wrote:
>
>> On Fri, Jun 15, 2012 at 8:48 AM, Sumana Harihareswara
>> <sumanah <at> wikimedia.org>  wrote:
>>> If you merge into mediawiki/core.git, your change is considered safe for
>>> inclusion in a wmf branch.  The wmf branch is just branched out of
>>> master and then deployed. We don't review it again.  Because we're
>>> deploying more frequently to WMF sites, the code review for merging into
>>> MediaWiki's core.git needs to be more like deployment/shell-level
>>> review, and so we gave merge access to people who already had deployment
>>> access.  We have since added some more people.  The current list:
>>> https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/admin/groups/11,members
>> Let me elaborate on this.  As unclear as our process is for giving
>> access, it's even less clear what our policy is for taking it away.
>> If we can settle on a policy for taking access away/suspending access,
>> it'll make it much easier to loosen up about giving access.
>>
>> Here's the situation we want to avoid:  we give access to someone who
>> probably shouldn't have it.  They continually introduce deployment
>> blockers into the code, making us need to slow down our frequent
>> deployment process.  Two hour deploy windows become six hour deploy
>> windows as we need time to fix up breakage introduced during the
>> window.  Even with the group we have, there are times where things
>> that really shouldn't slip through do.  It's manageable now, but
>> adding more people is going to multiply this problem as we get back
>> into a situation where poorly conceived changes become core
>> dependencies.
>>
>> We haven't had a culture of making a big deal about the case when
(Continue reading)

Permalink | Reply |
headers
Brandon Harris | 16 Jun 2012 09:31
Picon

Re: Revoking +2 (Re: who can merge into core/master?)


On Jun 16, 2012, at 12:23 AM, Dmitriy Sintsov wrote:

> Shrek ears?? Why people have to be humiliated? Why don't just:
> 1. temporary reduce the salary
> 2. permanently reduce the salary
> 3. fire
> ?

	I'm not sure that your solution is less of a humiliation, my friend.

---
Brandon Harris, Senior Designer, Wikimedia Foundation

Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate
Permalink | Reply |
headers
Antoine Musso | 16 Jun 2012 14:03
Picon
Favicon

Re: Revoking +2 (Re: who can merge into core/master?)

Dmitriy Sintsov wrote:
> Shrek ears?? Why people have to be humiliated? Why don't just:
> 1. temporary reduce the salary
> 2. permanently reduce the salary
> 3. fire
> ?
> Dmitriy

That approach but it has serious drawbacks:

 - people will be afraid about doing anything
   => short term consequences is that will have people covering their
ass to avoid any responsability.
   => long term, talented people go away and the organization as a whole
is no more progressing.

 - lowering salary would make people feel less committed to their work,
they will in turn produce less and eventually leave for greener pastures.

 - fire is always a last resort. Nobody wants to fire people.

Shreak ears could be a lot of fun if everyone adheres to it and
acknowledge it is not about humiliating but about having fun.  That
could be replaced with a "PHP Exception barnstar" :-]

Anyway, with lot of people being remote, that is probably not going to
work for us!

--

-- 
Antoine "hashar" Musso
(Continue reading)

Permalink | Reply |
headers
Chad | 16 Jun 2012 14:28
Picon

Re: Revoking +2 (Re: who can merge into core/master?)

On Sat, Jun 16, 2012 at 8:03 AM, Antoine Musso <hashar+wmf <at> free.fr> wrote:
> Dmitriy Sintsov wrote:
>> Shrek ears?? Why people have to be humiliated? Why don't just:
>> 1. temporary reduce the salary
>> 2. permanently reduce the salary
>> 3. fire
>> ?
>> Dmitriy
>
> That approach but it has serious drawbacks:
>

Such as the fact that a good number of our developers are volunteers
and we can't fire them ;-)

Overall though, I kind of like the idea of a "village stocks" style of
recognition when you break the site. Back on CodeReview, it was
impossible to convince people to resolve their fixmes--endless mailing
list and personal nagging did not work. However, once I put the "list of
fixmes by author" report in (aka: The wall of shame), people got much
much better at taking care of them. I think ways of highlighting the
mistake but showing where you can fix it is what's most useful here.
Nobody wants to be at the top of the wall of shame, so they fix their
code and learn as a result. Something similar here would be useful.

-Chad
Permalink | Reply |
headers
Antoine Musso | 16 Jun 2012 14:04
Picon
Favicon

Re: Revoking +2 (Re: who can merge into core/master?)

Rob Lanphier wrote:
> Perhaps we should institute something similar (maybe as simple as
> asking people to append "OOPS" to their IRC nicks when they botch
> something).

IBrokeWikipedia is 15 characters, which fit the 16 chars limit for
nicknames on freenode !

--

-- 
Antoine "hashar" Musso
Permalink | Reply |
headers
Daniel Kinzler | 18 Jun 2012 08:54
Picon
Favicon
Gravatar

Re: Revoking +2 (Re: who can merge into core/master?)

http://www.youbrokethebuild.com/
http://www.buildsonmymachine.com/
Permalink | Reply |
headers
Sumana Harihareswara | 15 Feb 2013 00:19
Picon
Gravatar

Re: Revoking +2 (Re: who can merge into core/master?)

On 06/15/2012 04:53 PM, Rob Lanphier wrote:
> On Fri, Jun 15, 2012 at 8:48 AM, Sumana Harihareswara
> <sumanah <at> wikimedia.org> wrote:
>> If you merge into mediawiki/core.git, your change is considered safe for
>> inclusion in a wmf branch.  The wmf branch is just branched out of
>> master and then deployed. We don't review it again.  Because we're
>> deploying more frequently to WMF sites, the code review for merging into
>> MediaWiki's core.git needs to be more like deployment/shell-level
>> review, and so we gave merge access to people who already had deployment
>> access.  We have since added some more people.  The current list:
>> https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/admin/groups/11,members
> 
> Let me elaborate on this.  As unclear as our process is for giving
> access, it's even less clear what our policy is for taking it away.
> If we can settle on a policy for taking access away/suspending access,
> it'll make it much easier to loosen up about giving access.
> 
> Here's the situation we want to avoid:  we give access to someone who
> probably shouldn't have it.  They continually introduce deployment
> blockers into the code, making us need to slow down our frequent
> deployment process.  Two hour deploy windows become six hour deploy
> windows as we need time to fix up breakage introduced during the
> window.  Even with the group we have, there are times where things
> that really shouldn't slip through do.  It's manageable now, but
> adding more people is going to multiply this problem as we get back
> into a situation where poorly conceived changes become core
> dependencies.
> 
> We haven't had a culture of making a big deal about the case when
> someone introduces a breaking change or does something that brings the
(Continue reading)

Permalink | Reply |
headers
Tyler Romeo | 15 Feb 2013 01:11
Picon
Gravatar

Re: Revoking +2 (Re: who can merge into core/master?)

I know this is pretty obvious, but self-merging pretty much any change
should be grounds for removal (or at the very least no second chance).

*--*
*Tyler Romeo*
Stevens Institute of Technology, Class of 2015
Major in Computer Science
www.whizkidztech.com | tylerromeo <at> gmail.com

On Thu, Feb 14, 2013 at 6:19 PM, Sumana Harihareswara <sumanah <at> wikimedia.org
> wrote:

> On 06/15/2012 04:53 PM, Rob Lanphier wrote:
> > On Fri, Jun 15, 2012 at 8:48 AM, Sumana Harihareswara
> > <sumanah <at> wikimedia.org> wrote:
> >> If you merge into mediawiki/core.git, your change is considered safe for
> >> inclusion in a wmf branch.  The wmf branch is just branched out of
> >> master and then deployed. We don't review it again.  Because we're
> >> deploying more frequently to WMF sites, the code review for merging into
> >> MediaWiki's core.git needs to be more like deployment/shell-level
> >> review, and so we gave merge access to people who already had deployment
> >> access.  We have since added some more people.  The current list:
> >> https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/admin/groups/11,members
> >
> > Let me elaborate on this.  As unclear as our process is for giving
> > access, it's even less clear what our policy is for taking it away.
> > If we can settle on a policy for taking access away/suspending access,
> > it'll make it much easier to loosen up about giving access.
> >
> > Here's the situation we want to avoid:  we give access to someone who
(Continue reading)

Permalink | Reply |
headers
Krinkle | 15 Feb 2013 01:29
Picon
Gravatar

Re: Revoking +2 (Re: who can merge into core/master?)

On Feb 15, 2013, at 1:11 AM, Tyler Romeo <tylerromeo <at> gmail.com> wrote:

> I know this is pretty obvious, but self-merging pretty much any change
> should be grounds for removal (or at the very least no second chance).
> 
> *--*
> *Tyler Romeo*
> Stevens Institute of Technology, Class of 2015
> Major in Computer Science
> www.whizkidztech.com | tylerromeo <at> gmail.com
> 

Though certain repositories in Gerrit have their own policies (such as operations, who appears to use Git
mostly as a log, they self-merge continuously, maybe even after deployment - don't know if that's the case)

But I agree that for MediaWiki core self-merging needs to be frowned upon more.
I don't know if revoking access should be a directly correlated consequence though, that may be too extreme.

Note though that there are at least 2 commonly accepted exceptions:

* Backporting a change approved by someone else in master to another branch, and self-merging that backport

e.g. User A pushes for review to master,  User B approves it and merges it, User A or User C then pushes the same
change to another branch and self-merges that) - such as to REL branches or WMF branches.

* Reverting

Due to the way Git and Gerrit interact, a revert (unlike a merge) is a two-step process. It considers it to be a
separate commit (which it is, of course). So clicking Revert only drafts a commit, it still needs to be
merged. This is generally done straight away if the revert reason comes from someone with merge rights.
(Continue reading)

Permalink | Reply |
headers
Tyler Romeo | 15 Feb 2013 01:35
Picon
Gravatar

Re: Revoking +2 (Re: who can merge into core/master?)

Mhm, yep. And yeah, we'd definitely want to be a little lenient.

*--*
*Tyler Romeo*
Stevens Institute of Technology, Class of 2015
Major in Computer Science
www.whizkidztech.com | tylerromeo <at> gmail.com

On Thu, Feb 14, 2013 at 7:29 PM, Krinkle <krinklemail <at> gmail.com> wrote:

> On Feb 15, 2013, at 1:11 AM, Tyler Romeo <tylerromeo <at> gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > I know this is pretty obvious, but self-merging pretty much any change
> > should be grounds for removal (or at the very least no second chance).
> >
> > *--*
> > *Tyler Romeo*
> > Stevens Institute of Technology, Class of 2015
> > Major in Computer Science
> > www.whizkidztech.com | tylerromeo <at> gmail.com
> >
>
>
> Though certain repositories in Gerrit have their own policies (such as
> operations, who appears to use Git mostly as a log, they self-merge
> continuously, maybe even after deployment - don't know if that's the case)
>
> But I agree that for MediaWiki core self-merging needs to be frowned upon
> more.
> I don't know if revoking access should be a directly correlated
(Continue reading)

Permalink | Reply |
headers
Matthew Flaschen | 15 Feb 2013 01:36
Picon

Re: Revoking +2 (Re: who can merge into core/master?)

On 02/14/2013 07:29 PM, Krinkle wrote:
> Due to the way Git and Gerrit interact, a revert (unlike a merge) is
> a two-step process. It considers it to be a separate commit (which it
> is, of course). So clicking Revert only drafts a commit, it still
> needs to be merged. This is generally done straight away if the
> revert reason comes from someone with merge rights.

I'm not sure this should be an exception.  In general (potentially
excluding urgent hotfixes if one is confident the fix is correct), the
decision to revert itself should be reviewed.

Matt Flaschen

_______________________________________________
Wikitech-l mailing list
Wikitech-l <at> lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Permalink | Reply |
headers
Brad Jorsch | 15 Feb 2013 01:38
Picon

Re: Revoking +2 (Re: who can merge into core/master?)

On Thu, Feb 14, 2013 at 7:29 PM, Krinkle <krinklemail <at> gmail.com> wrote:
> Note though that there are at least 2 commonly accepted exceptions:
>
> * Backporting a change approved by someone else in master to another branch, and self-merging that backport
>
> * Reverting

I'd propose one more:

* Someone else gives +2, but Jenkins rejects it because it needs a
rebase that is not quite trivial enough for it to do it automatically.
For example, something in RELEASE-NOTES-1.21.

_______________________________________________
Wikitech-l mailing list
Wikitech-l <at> lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Permalink | Reply |
headers
Platonides | 15 Feb 2013 15:32
Picon

When to automerge (Re: Revoking +2 (Re: who can merge into core/master?))

On 15/02/13 01:38, Brad Jorsch wrote:
> I'd propose one more:
> 
> * Someone else gives +2, but Jenkins rejects it because it needs a
> rebase that is not quite trivial enough for it to do it automatically.
> For example, something in RELEASE-NOTES-1.21.

Seems a better example.
I'm not convinced that backporting should be automatically merged, though.
Even if the code at REL-old is the same as master (ie. the backport
doesn't needs any code change), approving something from master is
different than agreeing that it should be merged to REL-old (unless
explicitly stated in the previous change). I'm not too firm on that for
changes that it's obvious should be backported, such as a XSS fix*, but
I would completely oppose to automerge a minor feature because it was
merged into master.
Note that we are not alone opinating about what it's worth backporting,
since downstream distros will also call into question if our new release
is “just bugfixes” before they agree into accepting it as-is.

* Still, we could be making a complete new class in master but just
stripping the vulnerable piece in the old release.

_______________________________________________
Wikitech-l mailing list
Wikitech-l <at> lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Permalink | Reply |
headers
Krinkle | 15 Feb 2013 16:38
Picon
Gravatar

Re: When to automerge (Re: Revoking +2 (Re: who can merge into core/master?))

On Feb 15, 2013, at 3:32 PM, Platonides <platonides <at> gmail.com> wrote:

> I'm not convinced that backporting should be automatically merged, though.
> Even if the code at REL-old is the same as master (ie. the backport
> doesn't needs any code change), approving something from master is
> different than agreeing that it should be merged to REL-old (unless
> explicitly stated in the previous change). I'm not too firm on that for
> changes that it's obvious should be backported, such as a XSS fix*, but
> I would completely oppose to automerge a minor feature because it was
> merged into master.
> Note that we are not alone opinating about what it's worth backporting,
> since downstream distros will also call into question if our new release
> is “just bugfixes” before they agree into accepting it as-is.
> 

I don't know where you pull "auto-merging" from but it certainly isn't from my e-mail, which was about
revoking merge access and about when self-merging may or may not be tolerated.

Auto-merging would imply some random dude can take a change from master merged by someone else *for
master*, and submit it to any branch and have it be auto-merged.

What I was talking about is that a code reviewer with merge access can submit an approved change from master
to another branch and self-merge it.

Just because one can however doesn't mean one should.

When our random dude pushes a change for review to an old branch that backports a feature from master, the
assigned reviewer should (as you explain) not approve it.

And for the same reason, when that reviewer backports himself, he wouldn't self-merge. Or rather, he
(Continue reading)

Permalink | Reply |
headers
Chris Steipp | 15 Feb 2013 18:51
Picon

Re: When to automerge (Re: Revoking +2 (Re: who can merge into core/master?))

On Fri, Feb 15, 2013 at 6:32 AM, Platonides <Platonides <at> gmail.com> wrote:
> On 15/02/13 01:38, Brad Jorsch wrote:
>> I'd propose one more:
>>
>> * Someone else gives +2, but Jenkins rejects it because it needs a
>> rebase that is not quite trivial enough for it to do it automatically.
>> For example, something in RELEASE-NOTES-1.21.
>
> Seems a better example.
> I'm not convinced that backporting should be automatically merged, though.
> Even if the code at REL-old is the same as master (ie. the backport
> doesn't needs any code change), approving something from master is
> different than agreeing that it should be merged to REL-old (unless
> explicitly stated in the previous change). I'm not too firm on that for
> changes that it's obvious should be backported, such as a XSS fix*, but
> I would completely oppose to automerge a minor feature because it was
> merged into master.

We should probably reset the subject again since this is something of
a tangent from revoking +2, but since it was brought up, let me
clarify the process behind when gerrit reports that someone is doing a
self-merge for security fixes (and I welcome input for ways to improve
the process!).

When we get a report of an xss (assuming isn't not yet "public" or
being actively exploited), we file a bugzilla ticket in the security
category. Usually me or someone else in that group adds a patch to the
bug. Someone else gives a "yes, this looks ok to deploy" comment on
the bug. The patch is put into production, backported to the supported
release versions, then we release tarballs / patches. When the
(Continue reading)

Permalink | Reply |
headers
Platonides | 15 Feb 2013 23:32
Picon

Re: When to automerge (Re: Revoking +2 (Re: who can merge into core/master?))

On 15/02/13 18:51, Chris Steipp wrote:
> This process is painful (no one like reviewing patches in bugzilla),
> and the wrangling to get the right people to review patches in
> bugzilla is slowing down our security releases. It would be much
> better if we had a way to submit the patches in gerrit, go through the
> normal review process by a trusted group of developers ending in a
> +2's, and then the final merge is just a single click when we release
> the tarballs. But we haven't been able to get gerrit to do that yet
> (although if any java developers want to work on that, I would be very
> excited).

gerrit drafts?
Although those are not as private as we would like. Another option would
be to email those amongst +2 reviewers, although willingness to review
through email perhaps won't be bigger than in bugzilla.

_______________________________________________
Wikitech-l mailing list
Wikitech-l <at> lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Permalink | Reply |
headers
Sumana Harihareswara | 26 Feb 2013 06:19
Picon
Gravatar

Re: Revoking +2 (Re: who can merge into core/master?)

On 02/14/2013 03:19 PM, Sumana Harihareswara wrote:
> On 06/15/2012 04:53 PM, Rob Lanphier wrote:
>> On Fri, Jun 15, 2012 at 8:48 AM, Sumana Harihareswara
>> <sumanah <at> wikimedia.org> wrote:
>>> If you merge into mediawiki/core.git, your change is considered safe for
>>> inclusion in a wmf branch.  The wmf branch is just branched out of
>>> master and then deployed. We don't review it again.  Because we're
>>> deploying more frequently to WMF sites, the code review for merging into
>>> MediaWiki's core.git needs to be more like deployment/shell-level
>>> review, and so we gave merge access to people who already had deployment
>>> access.  We have since added some more people.  The current list:
>>> https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/admin/groups/11,members
>>
>> Let me elaborate on this.  As unclear as our process is for giving
>> access, it's even less clear what our policy is for taking it away.
>> If we can settle on a policy for taking access away/suspending access,
>> it'll make it much easier to loosen up about giving access.
>>
>> Here's the situation we want to avoid:  we give access to someone who
>> probably shouldn't have it.  They continually introduce deployment
>> blockers into the code, making us need to slow down our frequent
>> deployment process.  Two hour deploy windows become six hour deploy
>> windows as we need time to fix up breakage introduced during the
>> window.  Even with the group we have, there are times where things
>> that really shouldn't slip through do.  It's manageable now, but
>> adding more people is going to multiply this problem as we get back
>> into a situation where poorly conceived changes become core
>> dependencies.
>>
>> We haven't had a culture of making a big deal about the case when
(Continue reading)

Permalink | Reply |

Gmane