Re: [Sugar-devel] Distributors mixing across Sugar branches (Was: Terminal v25 (attention distro managers!!))

2009-04-01 Thread Morgan Collett
On Wed, Apr 1, 2009 at 11:12, Jonas Smedegaard d...@jones.dk wrote:
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 On Wed, Apr 01, 2009 at 10:12:07AM +0200, Tomeu Vizoso wrote:
On Tue, Mar 31, 2009 at 22:55, Simon Schampijer si...@schampijer.de wrote:
 Wade Brainerd wrote:
 Yeah, v24 introduced tabs.  v25 is a bugfix of v24.

 Hmmm, it has been packaged for Fedora 11 already. And F11 should only
 contain Sucrose 0.84. Please make clear what Sucrose version it is
 for when you announce new releases - since otherwise packagers pick
 it up and put it in 0.84?

Wonder if that's a problem for SugarLabs? If a packager wants to
include an activity that is not part of the stable release of Sugar
that they are shipping, isn't that their choice?

 I'd say so too.

 What I see that Sugarlabs can do to help encourage distributors to not
 fuck up is to more clearly document what breaks by mixing.

 I have been guilty of mixing: Debian 0.82-based packages contain a too
 new Browse. That activity will not run on an XO, but Debian contains a
 newer underlying library so it works proberly anyway (I believe).  But I
 couldn't find anywhere a list of what I would break by mixing - I
 learned about this particular shortcoming by following this upstream
 development list closely, until someone mentioned it. (I think I even
 posted an explicit question about it at somepoint, which I think was
 ignored).

 I am not complining here, not at all: If we distributors mess your
 carefully composed dependencies, then we are to blame for breaking
 anything.  But your carefull composition is based on some assumptions of
 the underlying OS which are not universally true, and so does not apply
 to all versions of all distributions.


 - From a distributor point of view, it would be nice to be able to look at
 the Homepage of each part of Sugar (sugar-toolkit, sugar-base, sugar,
 hulahop, Browse, etc) and see not only a download link for the latest
 and greatest release of that piece, but a download link for the latest
 and greatest release for *each* of your development tracks (i.e.
 currently 0.82, 0.84 and bleeding edge) and also a brief note on which
 changes are not backwards-compatible.

+1

Also publishing the changelogs for each release would be good -
currently they seem to be only sent in the release announcement mail.

Regards
Morgan
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Re: [Sugar-devel] Distributors mixing across Sugar branches (Was: Terminal v25 (attention distro managers!!))

2009-04-01 Thread Jonas Smedegaard
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On Wed, Apr 01, 2009 at 12:43:04PM +0200, Morgan Collett wrote:
On Wed, Apr 1, 2009 at 11:12, Jonas Smedegaard d...@jones.dk wrote:
 - From a distributor point of view, it would be nice to be able to 
 look at the Homepage of each part of Sugar (sugar-toolkit, 
 sugar-base, sugar, hulahop, Browse, etc) and see not only a download 
 link for the latest and greatest release of that piece, but a 
 download link for the latest and greatest release for *each* of your 
 development tracks (i.e. currently 0.82, 0.84 and bleeding edge) 
 and also a brief note on which changes are not backwards-compatible.

+1

Also publishing the changelogs for each release would be good - 
currently they seem to be only sent in the release announcement mail.


With the risk of writing stuff that you all know better than me 
already, let me elaborate a bit on that:

There is several levels of changes.  In Debian we may have the 
following, for each single software package:

  * VCS commit notes, describing each atomic edit
  * Changelog entries, grouped per release
  * NEWS items about eventual major changes, grouped by release
  * Status pages, tracking newest events for each branch
  * Long description, describing the product in few sentences
  * Short description, describing the product in one line

I probably forgot some.

Above list is ordered in after how often it typically needs updating. 
(yes, short and long descriptions are also a form of status info: Debian 
Sugar packages currently mention that Sugar is mostly for XOs ;-) ).

An important issue (that I thankfully haven't noticed abused at 
Sugarlabs but frequently in Debian) is that each and every item in above 
channels should be somewhat self-contained.  It is ok to reference 
external resources (like bug-number being closed) but it is wrong to 
write Fixed earlier problem properly now without mentioning *what* 
problem it is, in the entry itself.


  - Jonas

- -- 
* Jonas Smedegaard - idealist og Internet-arkitekt
* Tlf.: +45 40843136  Website: http://dr.jones.dk/

  [x] quote me freely  [ ] ask before reusing  [ ] keep private
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Re: [Sugar-devel] Distributors mixing across Sugar branches (Was: Terminal v25 (attention distro managers!!))

2009-04-01 Thread Gary C Martin
On 1 Apr 2009, at 15:09, David Farning wrote:

 On Wed, Apr 1, 2009 at 6:29 AM, Jonas Smedegaard d...@jones.dk wrote:
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 On Wed, Apr 01, 2009 at 12:43:04PM +0200, Morgan Collett wrote:
 On Wed, Apr 1, 2009 at 11:12, Jonas Smedegaard d...@jones.dk wrote:
 - From a distributor point of view, it would be nice to be able to
 look at the Homepage of each part of Sugar (sugar-toolkit,
 sugar-base, sugar, hulahop, Browse, etc) and see not only a  
 download
 link for the latest and greatest release of that piece, but a
 download link for the latest and greatest release for *each* of  
 your
 development tracks (i.e. currently 0.82, 0.84 and bleeding edge)
 and also a brief note on which changes are not backwards- 
 compatible.

 +1

 Also publishing the changelogs for each release would be good -
 currently they seem to be only sent in the release announcement  
 mail.


 With the risk of writing stuff that you all know better than me
 already, let me elaborate a bit on that:

 There is several levels of changes.  In Debian we may have the
 following, for each single software package:

  * VCS commit notes, describing each atomic edit
  * Changelog entries, grouped per release
  * NEWS items about eventual major changes, grouped by release
  * Status pages, tracking newest events for each branch
  * Long description, describing the product in few sentences
  * Short description, describing the product in one line

 As our activity ecosystem matures, I think that we will want to focus
 on setting a method for activity developers to _opt in_ to joining the
 Sugar Labs release cycle.

Hmmm unless I've misunderstood, I actually think exactly the  
opposite :-)

As our activity ecosystem matures, Sugar Labs should be arriving at a  
more and more solid and stable Sugar platform, one that Activity  
developers can build for with less and less worry about burning their  
life away trying to work in, and develop for, an unstable Sugar  
release, just because it's the next one where we break your work  
again.

If you're developing an Activity that relies on a bleeding edge new  
feature, then expect to get broken and need to work right up to the  
release wire. That's a very good reason for a core set of fructose  
activities tied to the release cycle. They are the ones that have to  
work well for a new release as they provide the agreed base line  
utility, they can also lead the way on supporting new core features  
that are getting rolled out (act as proof of concept for other's to  
pick up on).

For mid to long term Activity development to be successful, we need to  
free activity developers to be as far as they like from the core Sugar  
Labs release cycle (by providing a stable activity platform). Activity  
developers need to work to their own release time cycles. Without  
this, very few activities will get to maturity.

Regards,
--Gary

P.S. All the above is with the understanding that Sugar has not  
reached version 1.0 yet (and I doubt it'll be there for another year),  
so it's understandable that Activities will get broken from time to  
time – but I like to think that is a short to mid term issue, and not  
the Sugar Labs long term goal ;-)

 It could start something simple like just a check list of items listed
 you and Morgan listed above.

 david

 I probably forgot some.

 Above list is ordered in after how often it typically needs updating.
 (yes, short and long descriptions are also a form of status info:  
 Debian
 Sugar packages currently mention that Sugar is mostly for XOs ;-) ).

 An important issue (that I thankfully haven't noticed abused at
 Sugarlabs but frequently in Debian) is that each and every item in  
 above
 channels should be somewhat self-contained.  It is ok to reference
 external resources (like bug-number being closed) but it is wrong to
 write Fixed earlier problem properly now without mentioning *what*
 problem it is, in the entry itself.


  - Jonas

 - --
 * Jonas Smedegaard - idealist og Internet-arkitekt
 * Tlf.: +45 40843136  Website: http://dr.jones.dk/

  [x] quote me freely  [ ] ask before reusing  [ ] keep private
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