On Wed, 17 Oct 2007, Paul Mattal wrote:
Eric Belanger wrote:
Shouldn't the first step be to identify clearly what current or potential problems are we trying to solve? Maybe that whole repo reorganisation is not needed after all.
Here are some I'm trying to solve:
1) Unclarity about what our committment is to packages in various repos. We need some clear way for the dev team to commit to maintaining a package in the long term, and some way to easily identify and track packages identified thusly.
I think that we already have a good idea about the importance of packages without the need to be in a specific repo. I'm also concerned about the guidelines that we will need to follow to determine if a package should go in mantle or crust. If they are too strict, we'll end up with only a few package in mantle. That won't help much as I just said earlier: no need to have X in a mantle repo to know that it'll stay in the distro. On the contrary, if they are too loose almost all packages will end up in mantle, as Damir suggested, with maybe 30 or so packages in crust. We could even end up with a practically empty crust repo at one point if its packages gets orphaned and removed. Is it worth all that inconvenience to our users and our work and time to just separate a few packages from the rest? I don't think so as no harm it done by keeping them with the rest and dealing with them when they'll become orphans. At last, if the guidelines are anywhere between strict and loose, we risk going into a bikeshed discussion with for result two repos with packages more or less randomly distributed between them.
2) Gross numbers of orphans everywhere and no clear method to follow to proceed to eliminate them on an ongoing basis. (not saying your proposal doesn't address this.. but you asked for the problem list)
The way I see it, after the current cleanup/adoption process, there will be no orphans left. The packages that we need to keep (dependencies, etc) will be adopted and/or assigned. the rest will be moved to unsupported. Future orphans can be delt on a case-by case basis with what I suggested. I'll repost it here in case it got lost in the numerous threads posted lately (it's open to discussion/modifications: When he orphans it he post to the ML so that we know about the issue and to perhaps speed up its readoption by another dev. If no dev wants to adopt it and if its movable to community (above reasons), we ask if a TU wants to adopt it. If so, we move the package in community. If no TU wants to keep it, we could keep it in extra, especially if it's up-to-date and in working condition. We might be able to maintain it as an orphan as a group effort if people check it regularly for update and fixes. I don't have any problem in having a few orphans. If the package becomes stale or a pain to update/maintain, we can ask again the TU and this time move it to unsupported if no one wants it. We could also do the same if the number of orphans becomes too large to handle.
3) Reducing the inefficiencies in the tools that developers and community members have at their disposal currently to contribute their stellar efforts for the benefit of everyone. Specifically:
a) Moving packages from one repo to another is hard. b) Placing packages in multiple repos is hard. c) Continued separate-track development on a package while in testing is hard. d) Tracking multiple binary repos for different architectures is hard. e) Maintenance of a package by more than one person is hard.
The above issues will be better solved by using other means than a split-up of extra, like switching to a new SCM as Jason pointed out in another thread.
This is just a start. All of these goals can be served or affected by the choices we make for repo design.
If the main issue here is a potential increase in the number of orphans after the current cleanup, I posted a simple solution in another thread that would work with the current repo setup with zero work involved.
This is one of the main issues, yes.
BTW, we should wait until the cleqanup/adoption is completed before doing any repo work.
That might make sense, depending on whether or not this would help or get in the way of the cleanup/adoption effort.
We should focus our effort on the cleanup/adoption to complete it once for all. It has been started months ago. The longer we keep these packages, the more effort/time we put in them for updates/fixes/rebuilds for .so bump. Time and effort that could be better spent. Plus they clutter the package interface.
- P
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