[maemo-developers] Diablo extras repository proposal

[From: Ed Bartosh]

On Wed, 2008-06-25 at 23:36 +0200, ext Tim Teulings wrote:

> I don't think it is fair to blame the developers without looking for
> reasons. I'm sure there are reasons for the current situation (some
> already responded to your mail). The situation needs discussion but not
> simple blaming. Situation is frustrating but worse could happen.
> 
The situation needs actions, not discussions. We already had a lot of
discussions. May be it's now better to act, not to speak. 

> > After we accomplished Misha's plan[1] several months ago[2] we had no
> > feedback and almost nobody used autobuilder and promoter.
> 
> I can speak for others but I personally tried to find a solution between
> improving existing and developing new software, switching the employer
> (plus working overtime), moving to a new home, buying a new car and
> other stuff. I'm not payed for developing open source software so other
> things have priority.
> 
I'm also not payed for this. 

May be I should stop sending emails from my Nokia acoount. People seems
to be confused. 

> > With this attitude I don't think it's feasible to go further and develop
> > additional features which will not be used again. Instead we should
> > probably concentrate on encouraging maintainers to actually use the
> > tools and to give feedback. From this point of view Niels proposal is
> > more than enough for now.
> 
> So back to the possible reasons for the situation (I cannot speak for
> others, so other developer please add or correct!):
> * Nokia did not give a long term release date but expects developer to
> just be prepared. I can understand why Nokia does not give long term
> release date (the reasons are obvious) but as a result it must ramp up
> such stuff far ealier (should have made advertisment and plans for
> strategie for diablo much earlier) to get a result in time. Perhaps
> annoucement was made but at least me was still suprized by some aspects.
> Assume that every (re)action of an open-source developer may take 2-4
> weeks, even if a task of 2 hours is to be completed.
> 
OK, let's wait for next 4 weeks then :)

> * Nokia must realize that the current autobuilder and extra repository
> infrastructure possibly still give no real gain for me and possibly
> others. As long as I can add *.install files to my own repository in the
> downloads section having an own repository is simpler than using the
> autobuilder.
Community must realize possible benefits of having central repository.
It seems that 'Repository mess' discussion was useless. I'm not
surprised by this fact at all. 

> The current infrastructure:
> + Is slow (autobuilder needs *much* longer than my local computer)
> and currently even seems to be overloaded.
> + There seem to be smaller bugs, making some builds fail for no reason
> + Needs more initial setup to be usable
> + Cannot handle dependencies, neither does it seem to compile packages
> in queueing order (so having one library and multiple depending
> applications I cannot "upload and forget").
> + I cannot push packages for multiple OS versions on the same time
> via the web interface (will take a look at dput)
> + Does not build packages for older distributions, so I still have to
> compile packages for older OS version myself, having twice the effort.
> + Does not support other niftly stuff like lint etc...
> + Integration with downloads could be much better
> + extras is more a mess than an really atractive place to be for my
> packages ;-) Quality was requested but control and enforcement seems to
> be weak.
> + Suggestions for improvements will not be rejected but the reaction
> suggests that things will take a long time (and suggests that I can slow
> done pace, too, which is definitely the wrong signal ;-)).
> 
What I can see here is pure blame without any wish to improve situation.
But it's better then zero feedback we had before. So my blame works :)!

I don't agree with some of your statements. Others make sense and I'll
try to address them. Especially dependency handling. It's already in my
todo list.

> The current situation is the direct result of this and for me personally
> no suprise (in fact in the last big discussion I participated I even
> hinted that this will happen).
> 
> However I don't think that keeping things the way they are or at least
> slowing down the development of this the totally wrong way (under given
> goals). This is the totally wrong signal and will kill extras
> repository. Instead  a way to accelerate the development and invest in
> improvement must be found. It looks like Nokia is waiting for the
> community to jump in, but possibly critical mass is not yet reached for
> this. Or why we discuss 2010 agenda?
> 
> How?
> 
> If the community cannot help or does not want to help (because hacking
> software is cooler than improving infrastructure?) Nokia possibly must
> either help,  extpectations must be lowered, or another strategy must be
> found. For me it looks like we are still no team.
> 
Community is helping. Autobuilder, promotion interface and current
rebuild initiative are results of this help.

Regards,
---
Ed