_posts/2020-05-07-esc-minutes.md - homepage - Git at Google

 ---
 title: "Gerrit ESC Meeting Minutes"
 tags: esc
 keywords: esc minutes
 permalink: 2020-05-07-esc-minutes.html
 summary: "Minutes from the ESC meeting held on May 5th"
 hide_sidebar: true
 hide_navtoggle: true
 toc: true
 ---

 ## Engineering Steering Committee Meeting, May 5, 2020

 ### Attendees

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

 ### Place/Date/Duration

 Online, May 5, 12:30 - 13:30 CEST

 The ESC meetings will take place once a month from now on.

 ### Next meeting

 The next meeting will be held on June 2, 09:30 CEST.

 ## Minutes

 ### Additional lint checks in CI

 With regards to the support of the latest version of error prone, David Ostrovsky made some
 work and progressed the activity. Currently waiting for the Bazel Team to review and accept
 his [GitHub PR #11271](https://github.com/bazelbuild/bazel/pull/11271).


 ### Reviewers promotion as Gerrit core plugin

 Sven Selberg is taking some of the work to adress the issues raised on the reviewers plugin
 to make it suitable for promotion.
 From a popularity perspective, the reviewers plugin is already the most used plugin
 of its type, amongst the general shortlist of the top 100 plugins for Gerrit.

 ### Gerrit v3.2 release

 There is a continuous progress on the features in development for v3.2.

 The [multi-master scalability of the replication plugin](https://www.gerritcodereview.com/design-docs/scaling-multi-master-replication.html)
 is close to completion. There is a concern on the test coverage and real-life production
 use of the functionality. It will be flagged as experimental because of lack of production use
 and feedback.

 The support for global ref-db in the high-availability plugin has been agreed with Marco Miller:
 the implementation will be done on the high-availability plugin master branch and, if finished on time,
 released at the same time as Gerrit v3.2 but flagged as experimental.

 Ben Rohlfs agreed to start validating PolyGerrit in v3.2 and master using Chrome 80. Existing stable
 releases will be continued to be validated against the older version of Chrome, because of the issues
 found with WCT tests on Chrome 80. A specific note will be included in the release notes.

 ### Next joint meeting ESC and CM

 Marco Miller has agreed to organize a remote joint meeting between the ESC and CM, because of the
 cancellation of the Spring 2020 hackathon due to COVID-19.

 ### Introduction of Quality Gates in the contribution process

 Luca Milanesio raised the issue that some changes merged in the past have created issues in released
 version of Gerrit. We do not currently document or enforce a quality gate for reviewing and approving
 changes.

 Ben Rohlfs pointed out that we have already a quality criteria to nominate maintainers and we assume they
 are good enough for the job of reviewing and approving changes. A further complication in the process
 is not needed.

 There is consensus on Ben's position: the current contribution process will remain as it is today.

 ### Review of open design documents

 * [Instance ID / name propagation in events](https://gerrit-review.googlesource.com/c/homepage/+/257972)

   The design has been analyzed by Patrick Hiesel and provided a positive feedback
   to move forward, as long as the instance-id is optional and not required / populated for single-master
   setups. There are no objections to the decision: the design is approved.


 ### Review of issues on the ESC component

 * [Issue 40009013 - A better way to prevent spam, or report spammers](https://issues.gerritcodereview.com/issues/40009013)

   A few months ago, gerrit-review introduced a group for adding accounts that have restricted permissions.
   David Pursehouse raised the issue that having restricted permissions is not enough as the spammers
   would still be able to login and operate on gerrit-review.

   Patrick Hiesel proposed to disable the spammers' accounts with a REST-API
   authorized to the Gerrit maintainers and Ben Rohlfs proposed to add button on the Gerrit
   UI should a suitable API be available in the backend.

 * [Issue 40011333 - Schedule of the ESC/CM joint meeting](https://issues.gerritcodereview.com/issues/40011333)

   It was supposed to happen during the next forthcoming Gerrit Hackathon in
   April/May 2020, now cancelled because of Covid-19. A follow-up discussion
   needs to happen with the CMs to understand how this can be
   coordinated remotely with all the different time-zones to cover.

 There were no other issues that have updates or require attention.
	---
	title: "Gerrit ESC Meeting Minutes"
	tags: esc
	keywords: esc minutes
	permalink: 2020-05-07-esc-minutes.html
	summary: "Minutes from the ESC meeting held on May 5th"
	hide_sidebar: true
	hide_navtoggle: true
	toc: true
	---

	## Engineering Steering Committee Meeting, May 5, 2020

	### Attendees

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

	### Place/Date/Duration

	Online, May 5, 12:30 - 13:30 CEST

	The ESC meetings will take place once a month from now on.

	### Next meeting

	The next meeting will be held on June 2, 09:30 CEST.

	## Minutes

	### Additional lint checks in CI

	With regards to the support of the latest version of error prone, David Ostrovsky made some
	work and progressed the activity. Currently waiting for the Bazel Team to review and accept
	his [GitHub PR #11271](https://github.com/bazelbuild/bazel/pull/11271).


	### Reviewers promotion as Gerrit core plugin

	Sven Selberg is taking some of the work to adress the issues raised on the reviewers plugin
	to make it suitable for promotion.
	From a popularity perspective, the reviewers plugin is already the most used plugin
	of its type, amongst the general shortlist of the top 100 plugins for Gerrit.

	### Gerrit v3.2 release

	There is a continuous progress on the features in development for v3.2.

	The [multi-master scalability of the replication plugin](https://www.gerritcodereview.com/design-docs/scaling-multi-master-replication.html)
	is close to completion. There is a concern on the test coverage and real-life production
	use of the functionality. It will be flagged as experimental because of lack of production use
	and feedback.

	The support for global ref-db in the high-availability plugin has been agreed with Marco Miller:
	the implementation will be done on the high-availability plugin master branch and, if finished on time,
	released at the same time as Gerrit v3.2 but flagged as experimental.

	Ben Rohlfs agreed to start validating PolyGerrit in v3.2 and master using Chrome 80. Existing stable
	releases will be continued to be validated against the older version of Chrome, because of the issues
	found with WCT tests on Chrome 80. A specific note will be included in the release notes.

	### Next joint meeting ESC and CM

	Marco Miller has agreed to organize a remote joint meeting between the ESC and CM, because of the
	cancellation of the Spring 2020 hackathon due to COVID-19.

	### Introduction of Quality Gates in the contribution process

	Luca Milanesio raised the issue that some changes merged in the past have created issues in released
	version of Gerrit. We do not currently document or enforce a quality gate for reviewing and approving
	changes.

	Ben Rohlfs pointed out that we have already a quality criteria to nominate maintainers and we assume they
	are good enough for the job of reviewing and approving changes. A further complication in the process
	is not needed.

	There is consensus on Ben's position: the current contribution process will remain as it is today.

	### Review of open design documents

	* [Instance ID / name propagation in events](https://gerrit-review.googlesource.com/c/homepage/+/257972)

	The design has been analyzed by Patrick Hiesel and provided a positive feedback
	to move forward, as long as the instance-id is optional and not required / populated for single-master
	setups. There are no objections to the decision: the design is approved.


	### Review of issues on the ESC component

	* [Issue 40009013 - A better way to prevent spam, or report spammers](https://issues.gerritcodereview.com/issues/40009013)

	A few months ago, gerrit-review introduced a group for adding accounts that have restricted permissions.
	David Pursehouse raised the issue that having restricted permissions is not enough as the spammers
	would still be able to login and operate on gerrit-review.

	Patrick Hiesel proposed to disable the spammers' accounts with a REST-API
	authorized to the Gerrit maintainers and Ben Rohlfs proposed to add button on the Gerrit
	UI should a suitable API be available in the backend.

	* [Issue 40011333 - Schedule of the ESC/CM joint meeting](https://issues.gerritcodereview.com/issues/40011333)

	It was supposed to happen during the next forthcoming Gerrit Hackathon in
	April/May 2020, now cancelled because of Covid-19. A follow-up discussion
	needs to happen with the CMs to understand how this can be
	coordinated remotely with all the different time-zones to cover.

	There were no other issues that have updates or require attention.