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The issue is that creating objective measure of contribution value is just unfeasible if at all possible. Not to mention amount of work required which is exactl

The issue is that creating objective measure of contribution value is just unfeasible if at all possible. Not to mention amount of work required which is exactly the issue. But mostly, maintainers want to just focus on their work and not be bothered by corporations and their developers trying to game the system just to prop up their position.

newsclues 5y ago
Yes, so either accept the status quo or create positive change. Given that it’s annoying enough that we have articles and comments on it, perhaps investing maintainers time into developing metrics that work for the maintainers isn’t a terrible idea.
- trasz 5y ago
  What for? Metrics for metrics sake are a waste of time. The solution is to avoid wasting time on metrics, which is precisely what happened here.
- ori_b 5y ago
  Sometimes, throwing trash into the trash bin is positive change. You don't need to put new trash in as a replacement.
qsmlfkqjsd 5y ago
> The issue is that creating objective measure of contribution value is just unfeasible if at all possible. Could you give an example of a non trivial patch which value would be unfeasible to assess objectively? I am not familiar enough with the maintenance process to understand how hard it is to measure objectively the quality of a patch.
- lmilcin 5y ago
  It is not about any single patch, you can't assess value of any patch objectively. For starters there isn't even an objectively established definition of value. You can't objectively measure something that only has subjective definitions. In a free market you could say that the price could be proxy for the value (ie how much somebody can pay for it should at least theoretically correspond to its value for that person). But how you do that for an open source project?
  - mltdbrn 5y ago
    > For starters there isn't even an objectively established definition of value. That's doesn't mean that one cannot come up with a definition . I believe that for a long time there wasn't a proper definition for energy. > You can't objectively measure something that only has subjective definitions. But it's your claim that it can only be subjective. Somehow you don't seem able to demonstrate it, nor even show an example of a patch - or a patch set - for which no meaningful objective quality measurement could be done. Anyway, this might very well be a red herring: it doesn't matter if it's objective or not, as long as those involved agree with it. Apparently, the current measure is this KPI thing (which by the way, is very objective, since it doesn't involve the judgement of anyone), and this mail we're discussing seems to indicate its inadequacy (because it doesn't measure the right thing). Now, whether having such measure is a good thing or not is of course a different matter, and perhaps it should be discussed first.
- spfzero 5y ago
  It might be feasible to assess a single contribution, but not feasible to assess all of them. To make this KPI work, maintainers would have to publish an objective quality rating for each accepted commit. That's an enormous amount of work, and impossible to get right anyway since the value of a change might not be immediately obvious, or might be negated by a future change, etc. The advice to companies using this KPI would be: let your own dev managers evaluate the quality of the commits of their engineers, and rate them on quality as well as quantity, then submit. Engineers will quickly stop creating busywork when their managers get wise to it.

newsclues 5y ago

Yes, so either accept the status quo or create positive change. Given that it’s annoying enough that we have articles and comments on it, perhaps investing maintainers time into developing metrics that work for the maintainers isn’t a terrible idea.

trasz 5y ago
What for? Metrics for metrics sake are a waste of time. The solution is to avoid wasting time on metrics, which is precisely what happened here.
ori_b 5y ago
Sometimes, throwing trash into the trash bin is positive change. You don't need to put new trash in as a replacement.

qsmlfkqjsd 5y ago

> The issue is that creating objective measure of contribution value is just unfeasible if at all possible. Could you give an example of a non trivial patch which value would be unfeasible to assess objectively? I am not familiar enough with the maintenance process to understand how hard it is to measure objectively the quality of a patch.

lmilcin 5y ago
It is not about any single patch, you can't assess value of any patch objectively. For starters there isn't even an objectively established definition of value. You can't objectively measure something that only has subjective definitions. In a free market you could say that the price could be proxy for the value (ie how much somebody can pay for it should at least theoretically correspond to its value for that person). But how you do that for an open source project?
- mltdbrn 5y ago
  > For starters there isn't even an objectively established definition of value. That's doesn't mean that one cannot come up with a definition . I believe that for a long time there wasn't a proper definition for energy. > You can't objectively measure something that only has subjective definitions. But it's your claim that it can only be subjective. Somehow you don't seem able to demonstrate it, nor even show an example of a patch - or a patch set - for which no meaningful objective quality measurement could be done. Anyway, this might very well be a red herring: it doesn't matter if it's objective or not, as long as those involved agree with it. Apparently, the current measure is this KPI thing (which by the way, is very objective, since it doesn't involve the judgement of anyone), and this mail we're discussing seems to indicate its inadequacy (because it doesn't measure the right thing). Now, whether having such measure is a good thing or not is of course a different matter, and perhaps it should be discussed first.
spfzero 5y ago
It might be feasible to assess a single contribution, but not feasible to assess all of them. To make this KPI work, maintainers would have to publish an objective quality rating for each accepted commit. That's an enormous amount of work, and impossible to get right anyway since the value of a change might not be immediately obvious, or might be negated by a future change, etc. The advice to companies using this KPI would be: let your own dev managers evaluate the quality of the commits of their engineers, and rate them on quality as well as quantity, then submit. Engineers will quickly stop creating busywork when their managers get wise to it.