| 29 May 2023 |
 Alyssa Ross | anyway I need to head out | 12:05:28 |
 infinisil | Or moving the Python core infra into a single directory, instead of it being spread over pkgs/top-level/python-packages.nix, pkgs/interpreters/python and pkgs/python-modules | 12:05:28 |
| infinisil | Nice discussion though, thanks for the feedback Alyssa Ross | 12:05:55 |
| Alyssa Ross | yeah, thanks | 12:06:01 |
 K900 | As someone who regularly makes small changes to random stuff, I would much prefer to not by granularly permission'd | 12:06:03 |
| K900 | Though I do think that having the ability to give people more granular permissions would be very nice | 12:06:34 |
| infinisil | I think with stronger nixpkgs teams, such that for every part of nixpkgs there's a timely response to proposed changes, this would work much better | 12:06:55 |
| K900 | I mean | 12:07:05 |
| K900 | "Just fix triage 4head" | 12:07:14 |
| infinisil | Haha | 12:07:20 |
| K900 | Like yes but also it's hard | 12:07:31 |
| infinisil | I guess small steps, and this RFC might even be a small step, because I think the NAT is such a team, and just taking ownership over the files implementing the RFC would be very small in scope | 12:07:55 |
| infinisil | Let's not put it into the RFC for now, but that would be a path forward | 12:08:18 |
 @piegames:matrix.org | In reply to @infinisil:matrix.org
E.g. the whole idea of separating code into "units", so that the package definition and the NIxOS module are together, would make it easier to give somebody permission to change both at once Modules and packages don't always map 1:1 unfortunately | 12:13:32 |
| infinisil | piegames: I'd say this would only be done when they do map 1:1 | 12:14:06 |
| infinisil | We need another place for modules that aren't specific to any package | 12:14:30 |
| @piegames:matrix.org | In reply to @k900:0upti.me
Though I do think that having the ability to give people more granular permissions would be very nice This is not about removing everyone's general commit access. It's about being able to allow maintainers to merge changes their packages, without having to entrust them with the whole Nixpkgs repository | 12:15:42 |
 raitobezarius | In reply to @infinisil:matrix.org
Hmm.. I've certainly seen certain committers merge changes to core parts of the code that they didn't really know much about, treating it like any other random package update But did we teach those committers this was not a good thing, etc. ? | 12:24:30 |
| raitobezarius | I mean before strengthening constraints, I'd love to read a clear motivation and rationale with data on how are we doing on this and what are the set of measures we can put forward to reduce those problems | 12:25:34 |
| raitobezarius | In reply to @infinisil:matrix.org
Same thing when people stop contributing, escalate to ones with more power. This is not my experience with how nixpkgs does things | 12:27:27 |
| raitobezarius | Usually when people goes AWOL it becomes unmaintained | 12:27:44 |
| infinisil | I haven't explicitly called it out, since in many cases I would've just merged it myself anyways, but I definitely questioned whether the committers actually understood the changes they just made, and whether they would be able to spot a mistake in such changes | 12:27:50 |
| infinisil | I did call out people merging their own stuff though, which is a similar problem | 12:29:01 |
| raitobezarius | What you're raising here is committers that contributes a change they don't fully understand would get confidence on doing more changes and may pull off a mistake someday ? | 12:29:05 |
| raitobezarius | In reply to @infinisil:matrix.org
I did call out people merging their own stuff though, which is a similar problem I agree this is IMHO a big problem but out of scope for this discussion | 12:29:20 |
| infinisil | In reply to @raitobezarius:matrix.org
What you're raising here is committers that contributes a change they don't fully understand would get confidence on doing more changes and may pull off a mistake someday ? Committers that merge somebody else's contribution, either of which may make a mistake due to unfamiliarity with the code | 12:29:59 |
| raitobezarius | I feel like this is an extremely general and prevalent problem in nixpkgs, one of which I made the mistake of doing also | 12:30:49 |
| raitobezarius | Surely constraining might protect certain areas, but it doesn't address the root problem, does it? | 12:31:13 |
| infinisil | I think confidence to make more impactful changes is independent of having commit access to the parts that need to be changed | 12:31:47 |
| infinisil | raitobezarius: What is the root problem in your opinion? | 12:32:18 |
