In May we formed an internal group for open source ticket triage. It was populated with Opscode employees who had different backgrounds and roles but one thing in common: they volunteered to participate because they loved open source. In about 20 meetings, we have triaged over 325 tickets!
With the increase of contributions, our irregular schedule of merge passes wasn’t cutting it. The goal was to work through the backlog of tickets marked “fixed/resolved,” indicating that the new feature or bug had a solution attached, and decide what the next step. We meet weekly using online collaboration tools and review tickets for items such as if the patches include, if the contributors have signed a CLA, and if the solution is a good one for the project as a whole. After the first meeting we produced an email to the Opscode development community relaying our activity to keep everyone informed, a process we’ve continued to refine since.
Sometimes the issues and contributions are cut and dry, largely due to an great experienced community, and we work through a lot of them. More complicated issues either trigger an email to the development community for discussion or the triage meeting transforms into an ad hoc planning session. This, and other events, can make the output a bit variable but we’re happy to have a process in place that can be counted on to ensure that the open source projects that Opscode stewards have regular releases containing the work of the community.
The result is that we’ve worked through the backlog and contributions are reviewed regularly, creating a tight feedback loop for you. New community members can make a contribution and we can help steer them in a better direction creating both a stronger project and a stronger community.
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