Re: [Xen-devel] [PATCH] tboot: remove maintainers and declare orphaned

["Hawrylko, Lukasz" <lukasz.hawrylko@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Lars

As you suggested, I have sent patch that added myself as TXT maintainer:
https://lists.xenproject.org/archives/html/xen-devel/2019-07/msg02077.html

I didn't change TXT support state to "supported", I guess that this should be 
done by XEN community.

Thanks,
Lukasz

-----Original Message-----
From: Lars Kurth <lars.kurth.xen@xxxxxxxxx>
To: Roger Pau Monne <roger.pau@xxxxxxxxxx>, Tamas K Lengyel 
<tamas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Lukasz Hawrylko <
lukasz.hawrylko@xxxxxxxxx>, Shane Wang <shane.wang@xxxxxxxxx>, Jun Nakajima 
<jun.nakajima@xxxxxxxxx>
, Rich Persaud <persaur@xxxxxxxxx>
Cc: xen-devel <xen-devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Stefano Stabellini 
<sstabellini@xxxxxxxxxx>, Wei Liu
<wl@xxxxxxx>, Konrad Rzeszutek Wilk <konrad.wilk@xxxxxxxxxx>, George Dunlap <
George.Dunlap@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Andrew Cooper <andrew.cooper3@xxxxxxxxxx>, Ian 
Jackson <
ian.jackson@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Tim (Xen.org) <tim@xxxxxxx>, Julien Grall 
<julien.grall@xxxxxxx>, 'Jan
Beulich' <jbeulich@xxxxxxxx>, tboot-devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, Marek 
Marczykowski-Górecki <
marmarek@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Daniel Smith <dpsmith@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: [Xen-devel] [PATCH] tboot: remove maintainers and declare orphaned
Date: Fri, 26 Jul 2019 17:17:22 +0100


> On 26 Jul 2019, at 08:17, Roger Pau Monné <
> roger.pau@xxxxxxxxxx
> > wrote:
> 
> On Thu, Jul 25, 2019 at 03:08:07PM -0400, Rich Persaud wrote:
> > (cc Intel and tboot-devel)
> > 
> > Hi Roger,
> > 
> > Thanks for your interest in documenting the status of maintenance for Intel 
> > TXT support in
> > Xen.  Intel TXT and Xen are deployed in production today by OpenXT and 
> > QubesOS for boot
> > integrity.  Xen was a pioneering adopter of DRTM, almost a decade ago, but 
> > mainstream enterprise
> > computing is now catching up with the May 2019 release of Windows 10 
> > SystemGuard.  It would be
> > nice to avoid "orphaning" one of Xen's competitive advantages in 2019.
> 
> Thanks for the feedback! Just to be clear, this is not a plan to
> remove the tboot code from Xen in any way, it's just a IMO needed step
> in order to reflect the current maintainership status of the code, and
> likely a way to move forward, please see below.


> > > On Jul 25, 2019, at 09:51, Roger Pau Monne <
> > > roger.pau@xxxxxxxxxx
> > > > wrote:
> > > 
> > > Gang Wei Intel email address has been bouncing for some time now,
> > 
> > Gang Wei's replacement is Lukasz Hawrylko, who posted on March 6, 2019:
> > https://lists.gt.net/xen/devel/546401
> > 
> > 
> > Could you include Lukasz patch, along with Julien's requested formatting 
> > changes, in your update
> > to the MAINTAINERS file?
> 
> I think it would be better if Lukasz could resend his patch, now that
> the section entry is orphaned we can add/remove reviewers and
> maintainers without being blocked.

I added Tamas who I believe works for Intel in the security area and maybe he 
can connect some dots
here. I believe that Intel's security organisation is entirely different from 
our normal interfaces
with Intel, so he may be able to help. 

@Lukasz: could you re-send the patch related to maintainership after the patch 
has been applied?
Regarding Jan's and Julien's concerns about awarding maintainership straight 
away. We tend to ask
prospective maintainers who don't have a track record of reviewing code in the 
community to start as
reviewers. An example of this is the VM EVENT, MEM ACCESS and MONITOR component 
where Razvan is
handing over maintainership to two other bitdefender staff members. In 
practice, this makes not a
lot of difference if you review contributions to TXT. 

Regarding removing Shane Wang as maintainer, the case for this is somewhat 
stronger than simply not
replying to [0]. The last mail Shane sent to xen-devel@ was in 2011. This - 
according to his
LinkedIn profile - relates to a career change towards becoming a manager and 
being responsible for
components that are not related to virtualisation. Shane should probably have 
stepped down as a
maintainer pro-actively, but we normally don't remove maintainers unless there 
is a problem. Clearly
the lack of a responsive maintainer is now a problem: we already have been 
unable to instate Lukasz
as maintainer in March for that reason as technically an ACK from an existing 
maintainer is needed.

@Roger: this should be recorded in the commit message. I would also suggest you 
refer to the thread
related to Lukasz taking over maintainership, which was essentially blocked 
because Gang had
probably sent the maintainership change request too late and couldn't ACK it 
because he probably
didn't have access to his Intel email address anymore.

So I think removing Shane is fair enough. In particular if it helps instate a 
replacement
maintainer. 

> > As a new Xen maintainer and contributor, Lukasz may not yet be familiar 
> > with the procedures and
> > practices of the Xen community.  We can welcome his new maintainership role 
> > without dropping
> > support for a feature, that (a) he is maintaining, (b) is used by Xen.
> 
> Sure, my plan is to declare the support orphaned, so that Lukasz (or
> anyone who has interest in this code) can be added as a reviewer
> afterwards without us being blocked on an Ack from Shane Wang, who is
> unresponsive (as per the thread pointed to in the commit message).


> > > and
> > > the other maintainer is non-responsive to patches [0], so remove
> > > maintainers and declare INTEL(R) TRUSTED EXECUTION TECHNOLOGY (TXT)
> > > orphaned.
> > > 
> > > [0] 
> > > https://lists.xenproject.org/archives/html/xen-devel/2019-05/msg00563.html
> > > 
> > 
> > Since we have at least one Intel maintainer, Lukasz, the feature need not 
> > be orphaned.  If Shawn
> > is not responding to the request to confirm Lukasz as maintainer, the Xen 
> > community has multiple
> > communication channels with Intel.  Pragmatically, a review of the 
> > tboot-devel archives shows
> > that Lukasz is working on tboot development.  
> 
> The orphaned step is IMO needed in order to move forward and add a new
> reviewer/maintainer. Without removing the current maintainers and
> declaring it orphaned we would be blocked on an Ack from Shane Wang in
> order to add or remove maintainers. Removing current maintainers and
> adding Lukasz in the same patch would still require an Ack from the
> current owners.

@All: we probably need to look at the hand-over of maintainership, given this 
issue. We should
really not be in this position and should have a way to deal with this in a 
more efficient way. 


Best Regards
Lars

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