[arch-dev-public] next major steps have to be planned

[Aaron Griffin]

On 9/18/07, Andreas Radke <a.radke at arcor.de> wrote:
> The repo shuffle is almost done. Next big tasks are pending. So i want
> to discuss with you the order for the next steps and how much time we
> need to finish remaining tasks.
>
> 1) Xorg is in testing for months. should we move it knowing some things
> will be broken. Should it stay in testing for some more time. Give up
> the bump and delay the upgrade?
> It's not good to have such a big player in testing for so long. I'm
> not sure if any other pkg we want to build in testing will link against
> it and might make trouble later moving it to extra.
>
> 2) Pending big updates: db, heimdal, cups 1.3.x together with gpl
> ghostscript. You all know how long the list of rebuilds will become...
>
> 3) We need to make sure all packages in core/extra have at least one
> active(!) maintainer(not talking about wanted package divisions). Right
> now we have 550(before core move)-700(now) orphaned packages. Even 112
> orphaned core packages after the move. This is not acceptable! Also
> some maintained packages keep waiting for updates for too long.
>
> 4) This brings us to the real repo cleanup. We had a Wiki side
> collecting ideas for removal and somebody was talking about an improved
> ArchStats. Both can help us. We should also leave the way how we choose
> packages we bring into the repo from "hey, I like it so I bring it in"
> to the needs of our users/community.
>
> 5) Move to another version control system. Was it a common decision to
> move to svn? Then we should prepare the move well not to far away.
>
> 6) Setup a standard build tool for all devs: force everyone to make use
> of a unionfs based devtool.
>
> 7) State of repoman?
>
> I don't want to hurry from one chaos to the next one. But I also don't
> want to see us again falling back and watch several months passing.

One step at a time here, man! None of this will get done doing it this way.

I have a suggestion, to start with. This is going to make things go
MUCH smoother in the long run, I promise.

All of these things Andy has mentioned are important, but we can't
carry on like a maelstrom.

Lets move one step at a time. We need people in charge of these
projects instead of everyone trying to run the show. So right now, for
each of these points, I'm going to nominate someone to spearhead the
charge.

1) Xorg move. Alex is our xorg guy if I'm not mistaken, could you send
us (new email thread, please) a little status report as to the state
of things?

2) Please keep us in the loop here. I, myself, was unaware of these
incoming updates. Andy, seeing as you seem to know the details, could
you give me information as to the schedule of these updates (another
email thread please), I will work to get things in order and planned
so this will go smoothly, I just need the information to do so.

3) This has historically be a problem forever - unmaintained packages.
Some of us do a lot of development work (Dan, Eliott, etc) and don't
have huge amounts of time to help out with 200 packages at once. But
we do need a way to stabilize this load a little better.
Andy, you seem to know our current package set better than anyone.
Could you possibly keep on bringing this up to people - in an attempt
to push the load around just a little bit.
By this, I mean, if we have a person with 10 packages (not people
doing heavy development work) and others with 300, we should do
something about that - you seem the best person for this job.

4) So we need to revisit, once again, the package cleanup that I had
started months ago. Eric, you were helpful last time - would you be ok
with figuring out the details of another round of cleanup?

5) I would like to address this issue coming up soon. All of us
working on real code are sick of having things in CVS, and I know the
hardcore packagers must feel the same.
Believe me, this is a critical issue in my book. If everyone else can
hold up their end on these other points, I will tackle this one.

6) We talked about this in IRC. I have 2 or 3 scripts that I want to
combine and polish up for inclusion in devtools, or a similar package.
These scripts use a prebuild clean chroot and a unionfs overlay to
build packages in a chroot. They work nicely, but, as I said, they are
rough on the edges.

I *WILL* make this available to you all by the weekend for testing and
the like. 8)

7) Paul, could you give us a status update? I know I'm not subscribed
to the ML (too much mail already), and other devs probably are not as
well. Could you perhaps start up another email thread for the status
and timeline?

Thanks Andy!

As always, this is all up for debate, and if I happened to point at
you for something here, feel free to say no, I'm just trying to get
the ball rolling.