[webkit-dev] Changes to the WebKit2 development process

[Jesus Sanchez-Palencia]

Hi,

2013/1/8 Sam Weinig <weinig at apple.com>:
> Hello webkit-dev,
>
> We are making some changes to the development process for WebKit2. These changes were announced to reviewers in advance, and I'd like to share them with you now.
>
> WebKit2 has a core set of functionality that is valuable to all ports, and then aspects that are only of limited/specialized interest. It is becoming increasingly difficult to improve and advance the core functionality while maintaining the more peripheral aspects. In addition, changes to the core often require significant expertise to evaluate, for instance to ensure that the security and responsiveness goals of WebKit2 are met.

Isn't that why we already differentiate between committers and
reviewers? I mean, isn't like that throughout the entire project
already? I thought _any_ patch to any part of WebKit required
significant expertise to be evaluated.

>
> The changes are:
>
> 1) WebKit2 now has owners. Only owners should review WebKit2 patches. While we do not want to apply this concept across the whole WebKit project at this time, for WebKit2 it is appropriate. The list of owners is documented in the Owners file at the WebKit2 top level directory, and in committers.py.

If I'm not mistaken, there are only people from the Mac port in the
OWNERS file. Will there be some policy that other reviewers from other
ports can become "owners" of WebKit2 as well, or will that be
Apple-only always?

>
> 2) Ports must keep themselves building. Non Apple Mac ports, if broken by core functionality changes to WebKit2, are now responsible for fixing themselves. We have asked those who run the EWS bots to make sure that failing to build WebKit2 does not block the commit queue from committing.

IMHO, doing this is breaking down an entire 'culture' of the WebKit
workflow that we are all so proud of.

>
> 3) Over time, owners may remove peripheral functionality from the main WebKit2 directory, such as support for features that aren't broadly applicable. We will not do this immediately, and we will work with ports that are interested in such features to create appropriate, maintainable general-purpose mechanisms that can be used to implement them outside of core WebKit2 code.
>
> While we understand that this change will inconvenience some ports, we have decided that forward progress of WebKit2 is a more important concern, and we are moving forward with this change tonight.
>

Well, at least from my side, I only got this email _after_ you had
already moved forward with everything. I actually saw the patches
landing way before it. Not cool! :)

I thought the reviewers had all agreed about all these, but now after
the first round of replies to this thread it is sad to see that not
even among you guys there was a full settlement about this topic.

Cheers,
jesus


> - Sam
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