Hey all, Really nice to receive this email. Thanks :) Here are some comments.
I think the 0.7.1-release is a great idea. Not that 0.7 has been a problem for me so far, but for people with slow connections it's probably hell. In effect, the minimal-install and the base-install becomes one and the same, since all packages have to be upgraded anyway. So, 0.7.1 is a good idea unless, of course, 0.8 is very close ahead, in which case we could just as well wait a little longer. A dev-arch blog is very good as well. One of the big problems this last period has been the feelings of aliention, so to speak, for (non-dev) users. After all, it's been obvious that a lot has been going on with libtool-slay, gcc4, gnome 2.12, and so on and so forth. But as long as the progress and the manner in which things are changing aren't visible for people, it's gonna feel frustrating and disengaging. A blog would definitely solve that problem. That a new webservice like this would confuse new users, I see as a minor problem. The fact that newbies might be confused is not really a good reaon for skipping it. The service would, after all, either be for devs, in which case they are experienced users and won't be confused. Or it would be for people really interested in what's going on behind the curtains, in which case it's completely alright to spend some time on finding the right place for that. Regards, /K. On Fri, 2005-09-30 at 11:42 -0700, Judd Vinet 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 ___________________________________________________________ Yahoo! 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