Re: Triaging the remaining open commitfest items

On Thu, May 14, 2015 at 05:37:07PM -0400, Tom Lane wrote:
> Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us> writes:
> > On Thu, May 14, 2015 at 05:10:29PM -0400, Tom Lane wrote:
> >> The good news on this front is that Salesforce has recently taken an
> >> interest in having GROUPING SETS capability, so I should be able to
> >> find more time to work on this over the next month or two.  What I am
> >> now hoping for is to work it over and have something ready to push as
> >> soon as the 9.6 branch opens.
> 
> > So you claim the item on the commitfest in the Fall, which effectively
> > prevents other committers from getting involved, then two days before
> > the freeze you encourage others to work on it, and a day before the
> > freeze you say it is too late to apply?  And now, all of a sudden, you
> > are interested in working on this because your employer is interested?
> 
> [ shrug... ] Andrew had unilaterally removed me as committer from that
> patch back in January or so, so it dropped way down my priority list.
> I'm willing to move it back up now, but I could do without people
> expressing a sense of entitlement to my time.  In any case, Andres is

I am trying not to express any entitlement.  I do have a problem with
people claiming things that block others.  In fact, the reason your name
was taken off was because you were inactive on the patch. 
Unfortunately, even though your name was removed, people still thought
of you as owning the patch, and your formidable reputation cemented
that.  I feel if you had not gotten involved, that patch would have been
applied long ago,  When someone's involvement _prevents_ a patch from
being reviewed or applied, that is the opposite of what we want.  I
think this effect is indisputable in this case, which is why I am saying
if we let this patch slip due to time, we are being unfair.

> currently the committer of record, and if he decides to push it in the
> next 24 hours, I'm not doing anything more to stand in his way than
> Robert already did.

Uh, did Robert delay work on the patch in any way?

> > How do I measure the amount of unfairness here?
> 
> Life is unfair.

True, but I have problems with leaders acting in a way that is unfair to
those with less power.  Have you considered how demoralizing it is to
work in an unfair environment?  Unfairness happens, but as leaders, we
are supposed to try to avoid it, not cause it.

--  Bruce Momjian  <bruce@momjian.us>        http://momjian.us EnterpriseDB
http://enterprisedb.com
 + Everyone has their own god. +