Gerrit mails, from address, verbosity, etc

This is merely a historical archive of years 2008-2021, before the migration to mailman3.

A maintained and still updated list archive can be found at https://lists.osmocom.org/hyperkitty/list/OpenBSC@lists.osmocom.org/.

Neels Hofmeyr nhofmeyr at sysmocom.de
Mon May 16 23:48:05 UTC 2016


On Mon, May 16, 2016 at 10:41:48AM +0200, Holger Freyther wrote:
> Hi,
>
> we have the first round of contributions through Gerrit and maybe now is a good time to look at the mail setup. My goal was to:
>
> * Have diff's/patches be sent to the MailingList to see what is going on
> * Have comments be sent to the MailingList to have people learn from feedback
>
> In terms of technology Gerrit offers us the following notifications[1]
>
> new_changes		Somebody created a new change
> new_patchsets		Somebody updated/added a patch(set) to a change
> all_comments		Somebody but jenkins commented
> submitted_changes	Somebody has pushed the submit button and it is in
> abandoned_changes	Somebody gave up on the change
> all			Everything
>
>
> Currently we are using "all" and maybe we want to limit it to "new_patchsets" and "all_comments". "all_comments" is a bit troublesome as it includes empty messages like "+2" with actual review comments.

I like to see everything on a mailing list so that I get updated as I read
mails in my mail client, without having to navigate to some other place and
klick 100 times.

I was thinking though about local filtering to direct the pretty high volume
and for my taste too verbose (s.b.) messages in a separate mail folder. Maybe
having a separate mailing list would make sense there for easier filtering.

Also the 'no-reply' sender is cumbersome, it should be sent by or have
a Reply-To: header so that replies go back to the mailing list instead of
individual recipients. (whether openbsc@ or a new gerrit ML, don't know)

Details on my "too verbose" opinion: I'd prefer to have none of the automatic
palaver words in the mails, and the subject should show the nature of the
notification, with only project name and log summary.

Ideally I want to see events of a given patch in a single mail thread on the
first glance:

  [PATCH] openbsc: frobnicate fringlebroods
  ├─> [+0] openbsc: frobnicate fringlebroods
  ├─> [-1] openbsc: frobnicate fringlebroods
  ├─> [PATCH] openbsc: frobnicate fringlebroods (#2)
  ├─> [+2] openbsc: frobnicate fringlebroods (#2)
  └─> [MERGED] openbsc: frobnicate fringlebroods (#2)

and the meat of the events in the mail body, without cruft.
(Not sure how much of it is easily available... just brainstorming)

For example:

(1)
Instead of

  Subject: Change in osmo-pcu[master]: Restructure sources
  Body:
    From Max <msuraev at sysmocom.de>:

    Max has uploaded a new change for review.

      https://gerrit.osmocom.org/58

    Change subject: Restructure sources

I would prefer

  Subject: [PATCH] osmo-pcu: Restructure sources
  Body:
    New patch: https://gerrit.osmocom.org/58
    By: msuraev
    <log msg + diff>


(2)
Instead of

  Subject: Change in osmo-iuh[master]: attempt to fix parallel build, improve AM logic
  Body:
    From ahuemer <alexander.huemer at xx.vu>:

    Hello Jenkins Builder, Holger Freyther,

    I'd like you to reexamine a change.  Please visit
    https://gerrit.osmocom.org/65 to look at the new patch set (#2).

I would prefer

  Subject: [+0] osmo-iuh: attempt to fix parallel build, improve AM logic
  Body:
    New comment: https://gerrit.osmocom.org/65
    By: ahuemer
    <actual comment>


(3)
Instead of

  Subject: Change in openbsc[master]: db.c: implemented incremental migration
  Body: Holger Freyther has submitted this change and it was merged.[...]

I would prefer

  Subject: [MERGED] openbsc: db.c: implemented incremental migration
  Body:
    Merged: https://gerrit.osmocom.org/99
    </end-of-mail>
    (all other info is available in previous mails)


The question though is, if the mail subjects vary depending on new
patch/comment/merged/..., will mail clients still show them in the same thread?
Maybe the already present In-Reply-To: header is sufficient there?

~Neels
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 819 bytes
Desc: Digital signature
URL: <http://lists.osmocom.org/pipermail/openbsc/attachments/20160517/85346599/attachment.bin>


More information about the OpenBSC mailing list