[arch-dev-public] Status Report: 2007-11-05

[James Rayner]

On Thu, November 8, 2007 10:12, Paul Mattal wrote:
> Aaron Griffin wrote:
>> ArchLinux Status Report, 2007-11-05
>> ===================================
>>    Aaron Griffin (Reviewed by Travis Willard)
>>
>> So, some of you may have noticed there was no Status Report last week.
>> Well,
>> see, I got busy. No one to blame but myself. I _was_ going to get it out
>> on
>> Tuesday, but decided to "roll with it", as it were.
>>
>> So, before we get started, I wanted to get some honest opinions - does
>> doing
>> this every 2 weeks make you guys feel less pestered?
>
> After reading Getting Things Done, I actually operate a lot on the
> week cycle, so I prefer a week. That said, it probably takes you a
> substantial amount of time to put these together, so I'll take
> whatever you're willing to do.
>
> I find these immensely helpful at keeping items moving. Just in
> rereading this list in the process of responding, I put two more
> things on my list to do.
>
>> * The dividing line: extra and community
>>
>> Another discussion that has gone by the wayside.  I'll try to summarize
>> here to
>> see if we can a better idea.
>>
>> The question: when does a package belong in extra?
>>
>> We all agree that we need some sort of "rule" for this. There seems to
>> be two
>> big ideas on how to "answer" this question:
>>
>> a) Split extra into "mantle" and "crust". Mantle contains packages
>> "important to
>> the distro" to be agreed upon by the developers, and crust contains
>> anything
>> else a developer wants to maintain.
>>
>> b) The idea above remains the same, BUT extra is not split at all. The
>> "mantle"
>> packages go to extra, and "crust" packages go to community.
>>
>> So, what do you guys think? Should we vote on these two to get things
>> moving?
>
> I vote for a), because:
>
> 1) I don't think we should make decisions for the TU community. They
> operate quite well relatively self-sufficiently, and I don't think
> devs should start putting packages in [community] if they aren't
> part of that community.
>
> 2) It will encourage us to make a choice to commit to some packages
> as a distro. This is a good thing. I still don't know what packages
> are okay to put in [extra] and which are not, and I'd like to have a
> repo I can put any package in that I'm willing to stake my
> reputation on ([crust]) and later see it voted into fuller support
> ([mantle]) if there's consensus.

I kinda agree. I don't think we need to make any change though. I think
the split works well as it is... from my point of view:

[extra] - we provide a higher level of 'support' and are typically more
important packages than those in [community]. (gnome, soffice, openbox..
more popular things). More support as we have [testing], more integrated
developer group, priority on bug tracker, more attention etc.

[community] - lesser level of support. _Typically_ less
popular/important/more niche (niche packages, special interest, slightly
less popular)

Exceptions are allowed, as some developers will maintain some "personal"
packages in [extra] that may be "better" in [community], as this is more
convenient for them. Consider it a perk of being a developer.

James