[webkit-dev] Re: ProjectVision

[George Staikos]

On 23-Nov-07, at 5:59 PM, Maciej Stachowiak wrote:

>
> On Nov 23, 2007, at 9:31 AM, Alp Toker wrote:
>
>> http://trac.webkit.org/projects/webkit/wiki/ProjectVision? 
>> action=diff&version=1
>>
>> Please revert this change until the topic has been discussed on  
>> the mailing list or bug tracker. You can't just make up a project  
>> vision like that.
>
> I don't think this page is meant to represent an opinion of the  
> whole project, but rather a set of requests from the QtWebKit  
> developers from the project as a whole. I think it would be a good  
> idea to discuss the substance of the requests on the mailing list.  
> I have already discussed some offline with Lars and George. Are you  
> guys up for discussing these topics by email? I am also happy to  
> discuss further off-list.

   Exactly.  It's our (QtWebKit) vision of what we think should  
happen.  If that's not clear then we can adjust to make it more  
clear.  I'm happy to discuss items via email too.

>> It would be great if the Qt developers could also make more use of  
>> the bug tracker and allow for peer review from the wider WebKit  
>> team. Unilateral commits by Qt guys have broken other builds  
>> recently wasting everyone's time.
>
> Actually, I'm somewhat concerned as well about the QtWebKit work  
> drifting away from the core somewhat. Doing work primarily in a  
> separate repository and then pushing changes upstream creates a  
> situation where the Qt developers communicate less with the rest of  
> the project, and makes other developers less aware of their  
> changes. It also means more distance from project infrastructure  
> like the buildbots.
>
> Qt guys, is there anything we could do to make it easier for you to  
> work directly in the webkit.org repository?

    We're kind of doing that - just with git.  We aren't able to work  
inside the Safari 3 branch but git allows us to easily track it,  
merge into trunk, and work with more flexibility.  We're not trying  
to drift away by any means.  We're just putting a layer in between us  
and Safari 3 branch to make it easier to do what we need.  We're  
still using the WebKit bugzilla and mailing lists for discussion and  
bug tracking.  We also plan to continue using the build bots, though  
we will probably have to setup a special one to track the Safari 3  
QtWebKit git branch.

    Unfortunately I don't think Subversion lends itself well to this  
model of development so there probably isn't much you can do short of  
switching to git.  Really, right now I think the best thing is to  
just keep things status quo and let us deal with the administrative  
issues.

    One other added bonus of git is that people who don't have commit  
rights can still create their own branches in git and we can then  
very easily cherry pick the good changes (with changelog) into the  
main branch and then push upstream.  It gives us instant review,  
allows new developers to work with the tools directly instead of  
emailing patches, and should not interfere with the normal procedures  
for granting commit and review rights.  We spent quite some time  
coming up with a system that should, if anything, open up the process  
even more and make it easier for people to join. Our goal is  
specifically to prevent us from drifting away from the core while  
making our work patterns functional.  If it turns out that we somehow  
drift away then we will immediately look at an alternative solution.   
For now, what we're dong just makes sense.

--
George Staikos
KDE Developer				http://www.kde.org/
Staikos Computing Services Inc.		http://www.staikos.net/