_posts/2019-08-20-esc-minutes.md - homepage - Git at Google

 ---
 title: "Gerrit ESC Meeting Minutes"
 tags: esc
 keywords: esc minutes
 permalink: 2019-08-20-esc-minutes.html
 summary: "Minutes from the ESC meeting held on August 20th"
 hide_sidebar: true
 hide_navtoggle: true
 toc: true
 ---

 ## Engineering Steering Committee Meeting, August 20, 2019

 ### Attendees

 David Pursehouse, Alice Kober-Sotzek, Patrick Hiesel, Luca Milanesio

 ### Place/Date/Duration

 Online, August 20, 12:30 - 13:30 CEST

 ### Next meeting

 The next meeting will be held on September 3, 12:30 CEST.

 ## Minutes

 ### Gerrit News Page

   There were no suggestions for new items. The hackathon in Gothenburg is coming
   up next week and there are likely to be some interesting things to write about,
   however the consensus was that it will be better to make a separate post about
   the hackathon rather than waiting until the next project news at the end of
   next month.

 ### REST API for retrieving Git trees

   We discussed whether or not the rejected design document should be restructured
   to follow the new structure proposed by Edwin. We don't want to ask the author to
   spend time doing that, and nobody else really has time to do it either.

   For now we will leave it as it is, and for future design documents we will
   ensure that the new structure is used. Alice will look into how we can still
   submit that rejected document.

 ### Follow up on Dave Borowitz's open changes

   Dave has left the project but there are several of his changes still open. We
   will look over those to see which of them are still needed, and then work on
   getting them submitted.

 ### Removal of obsolete user preferences

   Patrick discussed this with Edwin and they concluded that it's not necessary
   to implement migrations to remove the obsolete values from users' settings.

   David will rework the changes to remove the migration code.

 ### Status of the replication plugin

   There have been a lot of complaints about the replication plugin being unstable
   in 2.16. Luca attempted to fix one of the more serious issues, but abandoned it
   due to not being comfortable introducing heavy refactoring on the stable branch.

   GerritHub is currently using a forked version of the plugin that has the fix.

   David pointed out that since the fix in question is fixing a serious bug, it
   should be OK to submit it on the stable branch.

   Luca is concerned that the plugin has very low test coverage and wants to
   ensure that the coverage is increased before making further fixes.

 ### Gerrit versioning and criteria for accepting fixes

   Following the discussion about the replication plugin fixes, we also discussed
   more generally what the criteria should be for accepting fixes on stable branches
   (both in core and in plugins), and Luca suggested that could adopt a more
   well-defined policy like JGit has.

   David pointed out that JGit's policy is stricter because it is constrained
   by OSGI's restrictions on API changes, and this is not applicable to Gerrit. Luca
   clarified that the idea is only to make the guidelines clearer.

   The Gerrit contribution guidelines do mention what is allowed on stable branches,
   but it's intentionally not very specific so that the maintainers have flexibility.

   Luca will propose some updates to the contribution documentation to make the
   guidelines more concrete. We will review this in a future ESC meeting.

   We also discussed where these guidelines should be published. Currently most of
   the documentation is in the core Gerrit project, with the most recent version
   being on the master branch. This is not very discoverable, so we decided that it
   will be better to move it to the project homepage with a link from core.

 ### Upcoming hackathon and summit in Gothenburg

   Alice had proposed to focus on bug fixes during this hackathon. This was scheduled
   for Saturday, but Alice won't be joining on that day. Luca suggested to join
   remotely if possible.

   Patrick will propose a talk on recent performance improvement initiatives.

   Luca mentioned that there are many more users registered for this summit than
   the previous European summit in London.

 ### Design document for reverting multiple changes

   Patrick requested that we have a look at the [design document](https://gerrit-review.googlesource.com/c/homepage/+/233996)
   that has been up for review since last week. Some of us had already looked at it
   briefly.

   Patrick will follow up with ESC members in 3 days.
	---
	title: "Gerrit ESC Meeting Minutes"
	tags: esc
	keywords: esc minutes
	permalink: 2019-08-20-esc-minutes.html
	summary: "Minutes from the ESC meeting held on August 20th"
	hide_sidebar: true
	hide_navtoggle: true
	toc: true
	---

	## Engineering Steering Committee Meeting, August 20, 2019

	### Attendees

	David Pursehouse, Alice Kober-Sotzek, Patrick Hiesel, Luca Milanesio

	### Place/Date/Duration

	Online, August 20, 12:30 - 13:30 CEST

	### Next meeting

	The next meeting will be held on September 3, 12:30 CEST.

	## Minutes

	### Gerrit News Page

	There were no suggestions for new items. The hackathon in Gothenburg is coming
	up next week and there are likely to be some interesting things to write about,
	however the consensus was that it will be better to make a separate post about
	the hackathon rather than waiting until the next project news at the end of
	next month.

	### REST API for retrieving Git trees

	We discussed whether or not the rejected design document should be restructured
	to follow the new structure proposed by Edwin. We don't want to ask the author to
	spend time doing that, and nobody else really has time to do it either.

	For now we will leave it as it is, and for future design documents we will
	ensure that the new structure is used. Alice will look into how we can still
	submit that rejected document.

	### Follow up on Dave Borowitz's open changes

	Dave has left the project but there are several of his changes still open. We
	will look over those to see which of them are still needed, and then work on
	getting them submitted.

	### Removal of obsolete user preferences

	Patrick discussed this with Edwin and they concluded that it's not necessary
	to implement migrations to remove the obsolete values from users' settings.

	David will rework the changes to remove the migration code.

	### Status of the replication plugin

	There have been a lot of complaints about the replication plugin being unstable
	in 2.16. Luca attempted to fix one of the more serious issues, but abandoned it
	due to not being comfortable introducing heavy refactoring on the stable branch.

	GerritHub is currently using a forked version of the plugin that has the fix.

	David pointed out that since the fix in question is fixing a serious bug, it
	should be OK to submit it on the stable branch.

	Luca is concerned that the plugin has very low test coverage and wants to
	ensure that the coverage is increased before making further fixes.

	### Gerrit versioning and criteria for accepting fixes

	Following the discussion about the replication plugin fixes, we also discussed
	more generally what the criteria should be for accepting fixes on stable branches
	(both in core and in plugins), and Luca suggested that could adopt a more
	well-defined policy like JGit has.

	David pointed out that JGit's policy is stricter because it is constrained
	by OSGI's restrictions on API changes, and this is not applicable to Gerrit. Luca
	clarified that the idea is only to make the guidelines clearer.

	The Gerrit contribution guidelines do mention what is allowed on stable branches,
	but it's intentionally not very specific so that the maintainers have flexibility.

	Luca will propose some updates to the contribution documentation to make the
	guidelines more concrete. We will review this in a future ESC meeting.

	We also discussed where these guidelines should be published. Currently most of
	the documentation is in the core Gerrit project, with the most recent version
	being on the master branch. This is not very discoverable, so we decided that it
	will be better to move it to the project homepage with a link from core.

	### Upcoming hackathon and summit in Gothenburg

	Alice had proposed to focus on bug fixes during this hackathon. This was scheduled
	for Saturday, but Alice won't be joining on that day. Luca suggested to join
	remotely if possible.

	Patrick will propose a talk on recent performance improvement initiatives.

	Luca mentioned that there are many more users registered for this summit than
	the previous European summit in London.

	### Design document for reverting multiple changes

	Patrick requested that we have a look at the [design document](https://gerrit-review.googlesource.com/c/homepage/+/233996)
	that has been up for review since last week. Some of us had already looked at it
	briefly.

	Patrick will follow up with ESC members in 3 days.