Re: ideas for auto-processing patches

markwkm@gmail.com wrote:
>>
>> I am not clear about what is being proposed. Currently buildfarm syncs
>> against (or pulls a fresh copy from, depending on configuration) either
>> the main anoncvs repo or a mirror (which you can get using cvsup or 
>> rsync,
>> among other mechanisms). I can imagine a mechanism in which we pull
>> certain patches from a patch server (maybe using an RSS feed, or a SOAP
>> call?) which could be applied before the run. I wouldn't want to couple
>> things much more closely than that.
>
> I'm thinking that a SOAP call might be easier to implement?  The RSS
> feed seems like it would be more interesting as I am imagining that a
> buildfarm system might be able to react to new patches being added to
> the system.  But maybe that's a trivial thing for either SOAP or an
> RSS feed.

I'd be quite happy with SOAP. We can make SOAP::Lite an optional load 
module, so if you don't want to run patches you don't need to have the 
module available.

>
>> The patches would need to be vetted first, or no sane buildfarm owner 
>> will
>> want to use them.
>
> Perhaps as a first go it can pull any patch that can be applied
> without errors?  The list of patches to test can be eventually
> restricted by name and who submitted them.
>
>

This reasoning seems unsafe. I am not prepared to test arbitrary patches 
on my machine - that seems like a perfect recipe for a trojan horse. I 
want to know that they have been vetted by someone I trust. That means 
that in order to get into the feed in the first place there has to be a 
group of trusted submitters. Obviously, current postgres core committers 
should be in that group, and I can think of maybe 5 or 6 other people 
that could easily be on it. Perhaps we should leave the selection to the 
core team.

cheers

andrew