Thoughts on how to coordinate CVS work etc.

Folks,

 

Here is what we had been doing to coordinate editing work with some other
efforts I had been involved with, that also use CVS:

 

1.	When issues get resolved editors accept ownership of a subset of the
issues based on their availability and ownership of the pertinent area of
the spec etc. People play good sport and take turns to distribute the load
evenly amongst all the folks available. 
2.	Generally we have assigned ownership to a doc but not to a
subsection of the doc, to make sure a section does not suffer due to
unavailability of an editor. Also if an unreasonable number of issues are
scoped to a section, then the owner is unfairly burdened etc.   
3.	Taking ownership of the issues is typically done the editors call
(typically every 2 weeks 1 hour, immediately following the WG call), after
looking at the list of all closed issues and AIs pending incorporation into
the specs. We also decide who goes first, who goes next etc. We also plan
for a final date for completing all the assigned tasks and how long each one
needs. We also send a note to the list with the details of the above, so
that everyone knows and *remembers* what they agreed to etc.
4.	Then when an editors starts work, the editor sends a note to the
editors list that he / she is claiming the "pen" for doc. And when the pen
is released, the editors list is notified again, so that the next one in the
list can pick up the pen.
5.	This could seem complex process but, in my experience it has proven
to be very smooth and worked really well. It prevented people from stepping
on each other's work or needlessly waiting for others to complete their
work, when no one was really doing something etc. 
6.	In terms of tracking the changes in the doc, we made sure an entry
is added in the revision history table each time some one checks-in a new
version.  Each entry contains the identity of the person that made the
change, revision number (same as CVS revision number), a brief description
of the changes made identifying the issue number, AI number etc. as
applicable.   The revision history table is placed at the end of the
document. WSDL 2.0 has a god example of it.
7.	Since we are editing an xml document, I have found it useful to do a
spell check and also to generate the HTML version and review, prior to
check-in.
8.	BTW, how do we plan to track the issues list from the editors'
perspective? That is, which issues have been incorporated and which issues
are closed and pending application to the spec etc.?

 

Just some inputs for discussion.

 

Regards,

Prasad