Revised Policy on Obtaining Commit Access to Source Repositories
Mitchell Baker
http://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/Getting_commit_access_to_Mozilla_source_code#Super-Reviewer_approval
This new page is referenced from the Developing_Mozilla page
(http://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/Developing_Mozilla), which in turn
is referenced on the Main_Page of MDC.
Thanks to mconnor for starting this discussion, to everyone who helped
resolve it, and to sheppy for making this a part of MDC so quickly.
This is the beginning of an update of old policy documents and migration
from the old mozilla.org / hacking locate to MDC. We will also
update the old mozilla.org /hacking page to point people to the correct
information.
Mitchell
Reed Loden
Mitchell Baker <mitc...@mozilla.com> wrote:
> The revised policy is now posted at the Mozilla Developer Center:
> http://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/Getting_commit_access_to_Mozilla_source_code#Super-Reviewer_approval
<snip>
> This is the beginning of an update of old policy documents and
> migration from the old mozilla.org / hacking locate to MDC. We
> will also update the old mozilla.org /hacking page to point people to
> the correct information.
I disagree with this decision to move policy documents to devmo. I'm all
for moving documentation and such from www.mozilla.org to devmo, but I
don't think wikis are a good place for static policies. I feel that
such pages should be restricted more and that www.mozilla.org/hacking/
is a better place for them.
We already have the list of super-reviewers and module
owners/peers on www.mozilla.org, and I don't think they should ever
move to a wiki. The same feeling holds true for all policy documents
(including the CVS access policy). The whole point of a wiki is so that
anybody can edit the pages, but policies are not things that we want
just anybody editing.
~reed
--
Reed Loden - <re...@reedloden.com>
Mitchell Baker
Our thinking about location was based on findability than on type of
tool. "Our" in this case means Frank Hecker, sheppy and Mitchell.
We agree that policy documents should not be editable by anyone. The
wiki has access control, we will use it for these docs.
Sheppy, can you make sure this is in place for this doc? I think
currently Frank and I should be able to edit it.
The thinking was that anything that impacts developers should be on MDC,
since MDC is otherwise becoming the main entry point for
developers. This way developers don 't need to find their way around
one site to learn technical material and another to learn process.
maybe we should find a way to note which documents are "policy"
documents. A note at the top, or a sub-category within the list of
Develop_Mozilla area.
mitchell
Reed Loden
Mitchell Baker <mitc...@mozilla.com> wrote:
> Our thinking about location was based on findability than on type
> of tool.
Policy documents (in general) have always been under
http://www.mozilla.org/hacking/, and I don't see how moving them would
improve findability, since that's where most people expect them
currently. A lot of policies don't concern developers directly
(definition of module ownership, security bug policy, etc.), and I don't
see why these should be split up on different sites. If you want to
improve "findability", you could easily have a stub page on devmo
pointing to the relevant documentation's location on another site.
> The thinking was that anything that impacts developers should be on
> MDC, since MDC is otherwise becoming the main entry point for
> developers. This way developers don 't need to find their way around
> one site to learn technical material and another to learn process.
I don't agree with this either. I personally rarely use MDC, but I
look at wikimo (wiki.mozilla.org) quite often. If you want this to
go on a wiki and not a website to improve findability, it seems like
policy documents for mozilla.org as a whole should be on
wiki.mozilla.org, not developer.mozilla.org. There are lots of projects
associated with mozilla.org that do not use MDC for their
"documentation" and/or "technical" material. Take a lot of the webtools
for example... Bugzilla uses wikimo and not MDC for all its wiki-needs.
They, too, have to deal with the CVS Access Policy, but they have no
reason for dealing with MDC.
Again, don't get me wrong. I'm _all_ for moving developer documentation
to MDC, but I don't think Mozilla policies should be moved to a
developer-only location. Seems like they should be somewhere that is
associated with Mozilla as a whole. As to whether or not they should be
on a wiki, people sometimes have a hard time considering wikis as
"official" or "trustworthy" due to the usual ability for anybody to
edit them (dynamic), and therefore, not being really useful for
official documents that are mostly static.
Just my two cents,
Gervase Markham
> Policy documents (in general) have always been under
> http://www.mozilla.org/hacking/,
This is true. Basically, there are two conflicting categories - "For
Developers" and "Policy Documents". Mitchell is suggesting the former
has a stronger pull; you are suggesting that the latter does.
> for example... Bugzilla uses wikimo and not MDC for all its wiki-needs.
> They, too, have to deal with the CVS Access Policy, but they have no
> reason for dealing with MDC.
This is a fair point, though. Doesn't the CVS access policy relate to a
wider community than that served by devmo?
Gerv
Robert Kaiser
> I disagree with this decision to move policy documents to devmo. I'm all
> for moving documentation and such from www.mozilla.org to devmo, but I
> don't think wikis are a good place for static policies. I feel that
> such pages should be restricted more and that www.mozilla.org/hacking/
> is a better place for them.
I'm with you on that. Mixing up documentation (where we probably want
people to contribute directly and in a simple way) and policies (that
should be only changed by a certain amount of people after longer
discussions and should have a more formal touch) is a bad idea.
www.m.o makes pages there feel more official, more controlled, more
formal than the wiki-style MDC does. And that alone makes me feel that
those policies should be on www.m.o rather than on MDC. Even though the
wiki can allow nailed-down pages, it's harder to note that it is by
someone viewing a page than on the "normal, real, official" mozilla.org
site (see how it's even hard to find a description for www.m.o in
comparison to MDC that doesn't imply the feel I mentioned above?)
Findability is an important issue, but it's as easy to point from MDC to
www.m.o as it is to point anywhere else. The policy must be well-linked
and good to find, that's clear. But I don't see how this would be harder
with the www.m.o location than with the one on MDC.
Robert Kaiser
Mitchell Baker
respond to Reed's original post here because it's got all Reed's thinking.
1. Policy Doc Together
The argument that policy documents -- even those implemented by
developers -- are of a broader scope than developers makes sense to me.
And certainly this will be the case for Module Ownership for
example, as we extend Modules to activities other than creating code.
So here I agree completely with Reed's point.
Actually, I think the question is probably where the canonical version
lives and where links to it are. If we end up having all policy
documents somewhere else, then the MDC section on Developing Mozilla
should have a set of links, with brief descriptions, to all policies
developers might find useful. On the other hand, if some of the
developer - centric documents live on MDC, then the overall policy page
for the project must include a desription and link to them. I
personally don't have a strong preference to where these live eventually.
2. m.o/ hacking
The argument for keeping things a mozilla.org/hacking because they have
been there for a long time does much less for me. Mozilla.org/hacking
is a venerable old part of mozilla.org, that's true. It was venerable
enough even in 2000 or so when I wrote these documents and rearranged
m.o/hacking to look like it does today.
But venerable does not necessarily mean "must continue to remain the
central location forever." In fact, venerable might well mean "time for
retirement." That's my view of the mozilla.org/hacking page. It too is
aimed at developers. It too suffers from the same problem Reed outlines
-- not relevant to non-programmers.
So, even if we decide that policy documents belong in a policy section
separate form other things, and that that policy section belongs
somewhere elese than MDC, I still don't think m.o/hacking is a good
choice. It should remain with links to the new places for a good while.
3. Practical Steps Today
Today, the documentation site that gets regular attetion is MDC. The
Foundation has hopes to revamp the mozilla.org site but isn't there yet.
So my practical plan would be to leave the canonical versions of the new
policies at MDC for now, link to them from m.or/hacking and note the
desire for a Policy Section when the mozilla.org site is modernized.
When this happens there should be a policy section, and I would like to
see m.o/hacking retired and point to modern, maintained documents.
During this time, policy document should be under access control. We
can add something to these documents to note they are official policies.
This outcome lets me edit the documents easily, but not others.
4. Content
I was proud of the policy documents on m.o/hacking when I wrote them,
but they seem complex and difficult to follow now. So as we redo them
I'd like to make things simplier. For example, finding the links that
get the lists of module owners and super-reviewers should be easy. But
today they are buried inside documents, hard to find if you don't
already know how. We should also list all policies in one place --
theres a CA policy now, for example, that should probably be listed as
well, but isn't yet. So there is a set of work to do to modernize the
presentation of these and make the project more approachable. I'm
excitied that we're starting on this work.
I'm quite content to follow Reed suggestion and aim for these all in a
policy locale once the mozilla.org site is revitalized.
mitchell
Andrew Schultz
> Today, the documentation site that gets regular attetion is MDC. The
Getting attention from who? I really think there are a lot of
developers who don't spend much time looking at MDC. I certainly don't.
Or do you mean "gets regular attention" from people maintaining the
site? That seems like a poor reason to put anything there as it could
apply to absolutely anything.
--
Andrew Schultz
ajsc...@verizon.net
http://www.sens.buffalo.edu/~ajs42/
Mitchell Baker
> Mitchell Baker wrote:
>> Today, the documentation site that gets regular attetion is MDC. The
>
> Getting attention from who? I really think there are a lot of
> developers who don't spend much time looking at MDC. I certainly don't.
>
> Or do you mean "gets regular attention" from people maintaining the
> site? That seems like a poor reason to put anything there as it could
> apply to absolutely anything.
>
And I guess we have a fundamental disagreement on this. I believe it is
*critical* to have active, focused, ongoing maintenance of a site if it
is to remain useful. Every website, whether wiki or not, that I know of
that hasn't been tended grows stale. That's certainly true of
m.o/hacking, where a bunch of the documents aren't relevant any longer.
(I'm not trying to cast blame here. Or if I am, it's my own blame.)
So I have the opposite view. I would put important documents someplace
where the organization and maintenance is good, even if it's not the
most perfect place. The perfect place will not remain perfect with care.
mitchell
Michael Lefevre
[snip]
>>
>> Or do you mean "gets regular attention" from people maintaining the
>> site? That seems like a poor reason to put anything there as it could
>> apply to absolutely anything.
>>
> I meant attention from people who maintain the site.
>
> And I guess we have a fundamental disagreement on this. I believe it is
> *critical* to have active, focused, ongoing maintenance of a site if it
> is to remain useful.
I'm not sure anyone has disagreed with that. I certainly wouldn't...
> Every website, whether wiki or not, that I know of
> that hasn't been tended grows stale. That's certainly true of
> m.o/hacking, where a bunch of the documents aren't relevant any longer.
> (I'm not trying to cast blame here. Or if I am, it's my own blame.)
Seems silly to be saying this, but a "site" doesn't need to be attached to
a particular URL. If the stuff in the developers section of
www.mozilla.org is not good, then archive it all at some other URL and
make www.mozilla.org/developer point to the MDC wiki (or a section of it).
The discussion of the URL that shows up in someone's browser for a
particular document shouldn't need to be based on the logistics of
maintaining the content.
(I'm aware that it's not that simple, probably for both technical and
organisational reasons, but surely it's at least worth looking at what the
problems are rather than just giving up on www.mozilla.org and having
documents split between different sites)
--
Michael