Judd, I wasn't using Arch 6 months ago so I'm not used to these periodic updates but it's nice to hear what's going on on the dev side. (I really like this Arch community!) I dig the idea of the dev blogs, as it will give the users some insight as to what's going on. (I ask and see a lot of questions in the IRC channels where some devs aren't always present.)
Anyway, to all the devs, keep up the good work; we really appreciate it! And how would I go about contributing to Arch more? I've been contributing packages as I can to the AUR, but are there more things I could sink my teeth into that need attention--e.g. helping to get ready for 0.7.1/0.8, or maybe just getting my hands dirty in Flyspray? ...Hmm, maybe a "Help wanted" page on the wiki/dev-blog where people can see what needs attention? Cheers, Andrew On 9/30/05, Judd Vinet <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Hello All, > > I've been receiving a few constructive complaints about the apparent lack > of progress within the official areas of Arch development. > > Now, we revisit this subject about once every six months, and anyone > that relies heavily on open-source has probably been faced with similar > frustrations, either as an open-source producer or a consumer. > > Let me allay any concerns -- Arch moves on, as always. But currently we've > been bogged down by some large package updates, so the majority of our > efforts have been poured into the Testing repository. Normally you'd see > this effort appear in Current/Extra instead, where it would be > publicly noticed. > > To try and keep everyone on the same page, here's a little list of the main > projects we need to do, and a tentative ordering of them. > > > --------------------------------------------------------------------------- > 1. We have a list of 600 packages that need to be rebuilt as part of the > gcc4/libtool-slay projects. We have about 80% of them finished. The > big move may occur as soon as this Saturday. > > 2. We need to release soon. There are some other improvements we really > want to have ready for 0.8, so a new plan has been proposed. Instead of > releasing a 0.8 soon, we would release a 0.7.1 that has the (almost) same > installation as 0.7, but with an updated package set. This will give us > time to work on the installer for 0.8. > > 3. Xorg modularization, by JGC. > Xorg 7.0 is switching to autotooled libraries, splitting up each and > every library they have. This makes parts of Xorg easier maintainable > and makes xorg development easier for people who want to contribute. > When you want to contribute something nowadays it's nearly impossible > without spending two full days investigating the Imake buildsystem. > > 4. OpenSSL 0.9.8 is out, and we have to rebuild all packages that link to > it. > > 5. QT4 needs to be packaged. Tpowa is proposing a side-by-side approach > with QT3 and QT4, as some apps will not build with QT4. > > 6. Combine kernel26 and kernel26-scsi into one initrd-driven kernel. This > would be really nice for everyone to have -- I'd like to have this ready > by 0.8. > --------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > > In an attempt to keep Arch development activity more visible, we were > thinking of setting up a development Arch blog. This blog would be > admin'ed by official developers, but anyone involved in Arch development > would be able to post to it. Basically, we want a way to aggregate all > Arch progress in one place. > > The frontpage isn't the best, as that should be reserved for important > announcements and tricky/weird package upgrades. The dev blog would be > updated much more frequently. For example, a TU may post about his latest > triumph in getting package X and Y to build with package Z, or whatever. > Developers can post status updates about large/unruly projects like > libtoolslay, or just one of those "i'm still alive but busy" posts that > are so frequent (we devs are popular people in real life, dontcha know). > > Now, I know this is yet another web service, and it may not get used and > it may just add yet another place to confuse the newbie. Let me know if > you feel this is the case. > > Another point to bring up is Planet Arch. The Planet is an RSS aggregator > for some developer blogs. The one issue with the Planet is that it > aggregates ALL posts from our personal blogs, not just Arch-related ones. > A second point is that all Arch devs (official and un-) may not have > personal blogs to use, so they will need an Arch-hosted one. > > As a "workaround" for people that use and like the Planet, we can feed all > the dev blog entries directly into the Planet, so you can still read your > juicy Arch tidbits from there, if you so desire. > > Please share your thoughts, and let's keep it constructive. Constructive > is fun! :) > > > - J > > > _______________________________________________ > arch mailing list > [email protected] > http://www.archlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/arch > -- http://aconkling.blogspot.com _______________________________________________ arch mailing list [email protected] http://www.archlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/arch
