new RPM version and Feature process

[Matthias Clasen]

On Wed, 2008-07-09 at 16:33 -0700, John Poelstra wrote:

> 
> I'm all ears.  What are your specific ideas for a more effective process 
> so it is worth all the "trouble and effort"?
> 
> We've spent a lot of time up until now trying to get to a useful 
> process, including the public reviews of the process we have at the 
> start of each release.  More participation and concrete suggestions from 
> people like you would be greatly appreciated :)
> 

Here are some comments on my recent experience with the feature process:

I've just 'gotten back' a ton of feature pages with the comment 'please
complete section a, b, c...' - but there is no definition anywhere of
what each section is supposed to contain, so how can I know what
'complete' means ? 

So, I have to fly blind and put something in each section in the hope
that it passes the next time. But it feels like there is a lot of
overlap between the (undefined) topics on the feature template: 
If I've already filled out the 'detailed description', why am I asked to
provide more details in the 'summary' ? And if I've already listed a ton
of packages that need changes under 'scope', whats supposed to be put in
'dependencies' ? etc...

In general, I think this whole process might be more pleasant if it felt
less like writing a paper and getting it graded and more like a
collaborative process. E.g. if instead of 'please complete the user
experience section' I got some questions back like: 'I didn't quite
understand how to turn this on, will there be a menu item ?', 'does this
also require changes to package foo ?'.

Matthias