[Info-Ingres] ingres janitors

[Roy Hann]

"On Web" <a at b.com> wrote in message 
news:Nkd%i.32228$%j2.28372 at newsfe2-win.ntli.net...
> Given that ingres is about to spruce up an ingres janitor programme, how 
> many people does ingres think are waiting in the wings to become a janitor 
> (what an awful term)?

First off let's talk about that term, because you are right, it looks awful. 
The initialive is actually called the Ingres *Apprentices* program.  The 
purpose is to provide Ingres Corporation with a framework for making 
assistance available to the nascent developer community.  Under the program 
senior Ingres management have agreed to commit a fraction of the internal 
development team's time to mentoring and assisting newbies.  That is 
essential, because we might be volunteers but those people aren't and they 
need to be paid and their time managed.

The Apprentices are expected to undertake a number of projects, only one of 
which has been agreed so far, and that is the Janitors project.  Being a 
janitor doesn't sound very grand, and it's not meant to be.  The sorts of 
things janitors might do is things like systematically correcting sloppy 
pointer casts.  The main sense of accomplishment will probably come from 
just getting a successful build.

Unfortunately, I think in our eagerness to get started with more ambitious 
changes, like adding new (albeit minor) features, these are being suggested 
for the Janitors too, and that's probably not right.  Those will be 
apprentice projects in their own right.

> How many people are likely to be involved in developing for ingres in this 
> way?

We're about to find out.  The current planning is mainly about lowering the 
entry bar.  That means more and better instructions and documentation, 
possibly supplying a development appliance along the lines of Icebreaker, 
providing navigation aids like LXR or Doxygen, and most importantly, getting 
would-be community developers hooked up with some mentors.

> My thoughts are that those who are likely to be involved as an ingres 
> janitor, are already involved in some way with ingres development/ingres 
> open-source, so in that way a janitor initiative will make little 
> difference to ingres open source development.

I suspect that's not true.  The step up to get involved is currently way too 
high.

> From what I've read here, the ingres source isn't distributed with the 
> test tools used by ingres themselves, nor the extensive test cases used to 
> prove that the software is functioning as expected for a given build.

Spot on.  We're aware of the problem and is actively being addressed. 
Continue to watch this space.  Expect it to take a couple of months still.

> It seems to me that the effort required to become a janitor is significant

You are so right.  Please tell us more about what you think needs to be 
done.  The window of opportunity is wide open just now.

> and I haven't noticed anything that leads me to believe there's a long 
> queue of people waiting to sign up.

I don't know.  I suppose it depends where you look anyway.

> Is an ingres janitor programme really going to work? Is the programme 
> going to cost ingres far more than the potential benefit?

Most of what Ingres needs to spend money on needs to be done anyway for some 
of the more professional collaborations.  It's hard to see much of a 
downside unless we pick up some really needy recruits.  A huge part of the 
reason for wanting to use c.d.i. as the communication channel is to spread 
the burden helping them.

> For ingres, yes it's a positive news story, but I really wonder if there's 
> a better way to invest ingres effort.

It's hard to imagine a better investment.  Please feel free to make 
suggestions though.

> That might wake some people up on a friday..  ;-)

Very public spirited.  Thanks.  :-)

Roy