[openssl-project] GitHub labels

Wed Jun 20 20:29:37 UTC 2018

In message <c9407418eba94248bb9717273124395d at Ex13.ncp.local> on Wed, 20 Jun 2018 19:59:02 +0000, "Dr. Matthias St. Pierre" <Matthias.St.Pierre at ncp-e.com> said:

Matthias.St.Pierre> There are a lot of things that come to my mind when I see all those labels:
Matthias.St.Pierre> 
Matthias.St.Pierre> IMHO there are too many of them and for some of them the precise meaning is
Matthias.St.Pierre> not clear. So maybe we should reduce their number a bit and document the 
Matthias.St.Pierre> meaning and semantics of the other.
Matthias.St.Pierre> 
Matthias.St.Pierre> 
Matthias.St.Pierre> I) NAMING CONVENTIONS
Matthias.St.Pierre> 
Matthias.St.Pierre> First of all: Labels should be short and lowercase. Personally, I like these
Matthias.St.Pierre> lisp-style identifiers like 'need-cla' and 'technical-debt'. So I would rename
Matthias.St.Pierre> 
Matthias.St.Pierre>              'pending 2nd review'  ->  'review-required'
Matthias.St.Pierre>              'Issue resolved - WONTFIX'   -> 'wont-fix'

There should be a consistent coloring scheme too.

Matthias.St.Pierre> A propos: it might be useful to split the 'pending
Matthias.St.Pierre> 2nd review' into two different labels (of the same color):
Matthias.St.Pierre> 
Matthias.St.Pierre>              'pending 2nd review'  ->  'review-required'  and 'omc-review-required'

I'm frankly unsure...  it's not like there's such a massive amount of
'pending 2nd review' at one time to warrant such a split...

Matthias.St.Pierre> II) UNUSED LABELS
Matthias.St.Pierre> 
Matthias.St.Pierre> 'wont-fix' and 'technical-debt' are currently
Matthias.St.Pierre> unused. Do we really need them?  For example, if
Matthias.St.Pierre> an issue is closed without fixing it, does it
Matthias.St.Pierre> really require a ‚wont-fix‘ label?

That depends on how keen you are, when someone asks two weeks later
why an issue was closed, to dig through lots of commentary (for an
issue that did, in fact, contain a lot of commentary) to find that one
comment that says "Wont fix" (remember that people can keep commenting
after an issue is closed, so scrolling to the end isn't necessarely
the easy answer).

Matthias.St.Pierre> III) VERSION NUMBER LABELS
Matthias.St.Pierre> 
Matthias.St.Pierre> It seems like the version number labels '1.0.2',
Matthias.St.Pierre> '1.1.0', '1.1.1', 'after 1.1.1' currently serve
Matthias.St.Pierre> two differente purposes: 
Matthias.St.Pierre> 
Matthias.St.Pierre> 1. Indicate the intention to which branches a pull
Matthias.St.Pierre>    request will be backported 
Matthias.St.Pierre>    Approval holds for all labeled branches.
Matthias.St.Pierre>    
Matthias.St.Pierre> 2. As surrogate milestones

... and the other way around, it seems silly to use a "1.0.2"
milestone, since 1.0.2 was released a long time ago.  I'd argue that
all old milestones should really be removed, and only future versions
should have milestones.

Matthias.St.Pierre> ad 1):
Matthias.St.Pierre> Using the version number labels as indication of merge intention makes sense.
Matthias.St.Pierre> But then the 'master' label and (currently) the '1.1.1' label are superfluous.

I'd suggest keeping the 1.1.1 label, as we will have use for it.

Matthias.St.Pierre> If the pull request targets the 'master' branch, why does it need a 'master' label?
Matthias.St.Pierre> The github search index allows to search for 'base:<branchname>' which is a much
Matthias.St.Pierre> more reliable way of determining the target branch:

I'm learning something new, I had no clue of the 'base:' feature.

However, it sometimes happens that I do a PR based on, for example,
OpenSSL_1_1_0-stable, simply because that's where the issue was found,
but with the intent to cherry pick into newer lines of development
(master, and OpenSSL_1_1_1-stable soon).  That gives those labels
their potential for showing intent.

Matthias.St.Pierre> ad 2): 
Matthias.St.Pierre> The label 'after 1.1.1' is a surrogate milestone
Matthias.St.Pierre> and IMHO it would be better to use the 'Post
Matthias.St.Pierre> 1.1.1' milestone instead of the label. 

I agree with you, but this was debated during the last F2F, and ideas
differ.  I don't quite remember if we came to a real decision, though.

Matthias.St.Pierre> One could go even further and ask what sense does
Matthias.St.Pierre> it make to have such an unspecific milestone as
Matthias.St.Pierre> 'Post 1.1.1'? Wouldn't it be better to leave such
Matthias.St.Pierre> pull requests unassigned?

No, because we need to differentiate between PRs and issues we haven't
looked at yet and those where we have made a decision where they
should go.  And perhaps that's an argument to keep using the label, as
it's more visible in the pull request summary.

Matthias.St.Pierre> IMHO it would make sense to use the version labels
Matthias.St.Pierre> only to indicate merge intention and otherwise use
Matthias.St.Pierre> milestones.

I personally agree.

-- 
Richard Levitte         levitte at openssl.org
OpenSSL Project         http://www.openssl.org/~levitte/