ROS Quality Assurance Working Group meeting minutes Kick Off Meeting - 10/01/2018

Quality Assurance
1

ROS Quality Assurance Working Group meeting minutes Kick Off Meeting
Time: 9 a.m. UTC and 5 p.m. UTC

Participants:
9 a.m. UTC Group

  1. Adam Alami
  2. Akshay Jain
  3. Andrzej Wasowski
  4. Geoffrey Biggs
  5. Kei Okada

5 p.m. UTC Group

  1. Adam Alami
  2. Aaditya Saraiya
  3. David Bensoussan
  4. Dirk Thomas
  5. Gijs van der Hoorn
  6. Ian McMahon
  7. Luca Marchionni
  8. Matt Droter
  9. Shaun Edwards
  10. Victor Lopez

Notes:
ROSIN quality assurance (QA) initiatives were discussed. Below is a summary of the discussion. The following problems and solutions were discussed:

ROS Quality Assurance Working Group – Kick Off Meeting Agenda.pdf (31.0 KB)

ROS Working Group Mission Statement and Scope of Work.pdf (15.3 KB)

ROS Quality Assurance Initiatives.pdf (70.1 KB)

  1. Problem: There is a lack of a centralized source for community quality assurance practices, knowledge, and collaboration.

    1. Solutions:
      1. Quality Hub: Would inform about existing practices and would be a central “go-to” place for QA knowledge sharing (documentation of QA practices)
        1. Discussion:
          1. Make the content of the website educational and easy to digest.
          2. The content should capture the knowledge most engineers do not already have.
          3. The website should be incorporated into the existing infrastructure (i.e., Wiki, ROS Answers).
      2. Quality Discourse: A dedicated QA forum
        1. Discussion:
          1. A chapter was created for Quality Assurance.

  2. Problem: The quality of packages is not visible.

    1. Solution:
      1. Make ROS packages’ quality visible.
        1. Discussion:
        1. A “Quality Stamp” was suggested. We can use a script (leverage existing Github feature) to generate the stamp.
        2. Enforce the stamp creation in the distribution process.

  3. Problem: Inconsistent practice of code review

    1. Solution:
      1. Energize the code review process.
        1. Discussion:
          1. It was recommended to use the combination of a tool and peer review.
          2. It was suggested to create a website (i.e., similar to answers.org) dedicated to code review.
          3. Motivation was discussed. What would motivate community members to do code review? A reward system similar to the “Karma” system was discussed.
          4. Review and update the current standards.
          5. Possibly provide tutorials on how to review a pull request.

  4. Problem: Recruiting maintainers is a “real problem” for ROS and ROS-I. This has led to an increasing number of orphan packages. This is a capacity issue within the core team. The team is struggling to attract new maintainers. The team capacity does not reflect the maintenance effort required. This is also applicable to non-core packages. There is a lack of willingness to contribute to packages’ maintenance. It is a challenge to attract and retain new maintainers.

    1. Solutions:
      1. Propose and implement a funding model for the maintenance activities.
      2. Organize periodic campaigns to recruit new maintainers for both core and non-core packages.
      3. Define an onboarding process for both core and non-core community members.
      4. Document the onboarding process, including online educational materials (i.e., tutorials).
      5. Implement the onboarding process.
      6. Formalize the code ownership process.
        1. Discussion:
        1. Reward maintainers with Github Bounty.
        2. Identify a sustainability strategy.
        3. The possibility of using ROSIN FTPs to finance maintenance was discussed.
          Links:

On maintaining orphaned packages

Recruiting more maintainers

3 Likes
2

I recommend using the github tools for code reviews.

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4

Where can I get informed about future meetings of this initiative?

5

I’ll send you the Doole link for next meeting to your email. I have your email. I believe I sent you for the first meeting.

6

@Alami ah, I see. Yes, I got a doodle inquiry, but did not respond. So probably that’s why I didn’t get the result…

In the future, I’ll know to respond. For me personally, I would welcome getting the meeting date in any case, regardless of whether I responded or not, but I can see how other people might feel differently.

7

@Alami I don’t know if I’m still on time to be included in the next meetings, but I’m also interested and glad to help if possible.

8

@jrivero, you more than welcome. Just send me your email and I’ll include you in the next invite.

1 Like
9

@iluetkeb, I’ll make sure you get all the invites.

10

Can I get invite too please: dejan.pangercic@gmail.com.

thx, D.

11

Im interested in the meeting too. jihoonlee.in@gmail.com

Cheers,
Jihoon