[Scummvm-devel] New engine merging procedure proposal

Johannes Schickel lordhoto at scummvm.org
Mon Jun 20 00:59:09 CEST 2011


Hi folks,

the recent Dreamweb inclusion "discussion" struck me again on how we handle 
new engines to be merged.

Personally I think the engine was merged much too fast. I think not everybody 
interested in voicing their opinion on the engine had the time to do that, 
while it was still not in the source tree at least. I for one didn't have  
enough time to write any proper mail about it in those two days. Then again it 
might be that only *I* wanted to comment on it before it was in-tree and 
didn't have a chance. If that's the case just correct me on my wrong view on 
this.

Because of this I wanted to propose a new procedure for merging engines. In my 
opinion we should give everyone the chance to review and comment on a new 
engine *before* it is merged. Thus I would like to see the following scheme  
for handling merges of new engines:

- We should require the engine authors to have their engine on github in a 
ScummVM fork before it even has a chance to be merged.

- When the authors want their engine to be merged into the main trunk they 
should make both a pull request on github with a good description on the 
engine state etc. and a mail to -devel to at *least* notify everyone about the 
pull request.

- Then we should at least wait two weeks before merging the engine/making the 
final decision on whether to merge the engine or not. This will give everyone 
the chance to raise their voice on the engine after reviewing the changes.

- Next I would like to see that every new engine needs a *public* OK from all 
our team leaders. This should help in agreeing on a consensus.

I am happy to hear what you guys think about this procedure proposal.

// Johannes




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