Mainline in regression-fix mode after Thanksgiving

[Mike Stump]

I find the current thread kinda surreal.

I would like to arguing in favor of setting a policy in which we 
automagically assign people the regressions they cause.  One advantage, 
by exposing them to the after effects of what they do, with experience 
in such a system, they learn what types of changes cause what types of 
problems.  I'll go so far as to say, most people actually change their 
behavior to match the automation.  My experience is that this happens 
in 8-12 months.  Having a machine do it, is easier to take, then having 
someone bring it up, if the machine brings up the issue, others, in 
time, generally won't have to.  Our development model relies heavily on 
trust.  I trust you will not make things worse, and you trust me, that 
I will not.  Our users trust us that we won't put in regressions.  
Users are not unimportant.

As to the question of important regressions v unimportant ones, things 
we plan on shipping broken, those can be xfailed/suspended/closed.

The issue was raised that we can revert patches for regressions that 
are not promptly fixed.  While this works some of the time, this breaks 
down when the regression is found via slow turn around testing 
(non-dejagnu testing), and sometimes these can take a year or more to 
show up, at that point, we generally can't just revert a change, as 
there may now be other work that relies in a more critical way, that 
the change is in.

I don't think people need to unassign so others can take up the slack, 
I think people should just grab bugs they want to fix, and once fixed, 
close them.  A bug that has been sitting for a year on someone's plate 
means that we need more maintainers in that area, or that the bug just 
isn't all that important.  When people step forward to fix things, they 
are voting that the bug is important.

I think that each person can decide if they work on a regression they 
caused or a bug they want to fix.  In general, we want to encourage 
people to fix they regressions they cause.  I think most people 
understand this.


So, let me ask if anyone who puts in patches would object to having 
regressions assigned to them?  If no one objects, I'd say, lets just 
make it policy.