[development] CVS Approval Policy: was Re: new features in D6 core?

[Scott Reynen]

On Nov 18, 2009, at 6:59 AM, Ashraf Amayreh wrote:

> With 5000+ modules it would be impossible for the core team to keep  
> up.

A similar bottleneck exists with the current system.  Seems like we  
could use a larger community contributing to the review process.

> Any option to evaluate modules after they've been submitted isn't  
> practical at all.

That's an awfully broad rejection.  We already evaluate modules after  
they've been submitted; we just don't collect those evaluations  
explicitly anywhere.  But we do collect them implicitly via usage  
stats, issue queues, and several blogs dedicated to module reviews.

Further, many other code repositories manage to pull off the task of  
reviewing code after it is submitted, e.g. github (forking), Google  
code (external), SourceForge (vote up or down).  We could probably  
learn something from those experiences.

> The only alternative is to catch projects before they are even  
> created by requiring permission per project rather than a CVS  
> account that can create an unlimited number of projects/modules. Not  
> to mention the added benefit of introducing the module on the dev  
> list to everyone which is a huge advantage.

If we eventually move to distributed version control (as Dries  
suggested here: http://buytaert.net/8-steps-for-drupal-8 ), managing  
contribution via access to version control will become impossible.   
We'll then need some way to accept and reject modules after they  
already exist in a repository, even if it's not the primary  
repository.  And that sounds a lot like many of the suggestions here.

> A comment period would help with this.
>
> I disagree to this. When CVS owners find they won't be able to  
> upload their modules without getting an administrator's approval  
> they will lean towards introducing the module before writing code  
> which would save on a lot of coding work.

That assumes people realize Drupal CVS isn't open to all contributions  
before they write the code.  Because Drupal is relatively rare in  
evaluating projects before any actual code, it seems entirely  
reasonable for people to misunderstand this process.  And that's  
exactly what started this discussion.

--
Scott Reynen
MakeDataMakeSense.com