Stephen Snow kirjoitti 5.10.2021 klo 15.39:
we were initially discussing that it could be useful to have some
package one can experiment with without being too much worried about
the
result.
However, discussing this back and forth, we figured that it might
also
where new coming package maintainer could gradually gain experience
with
the packaging workflows. So the simplest tasks could be:
1) Add changelog entry into onboarding package and open PR with the
change. This would not require too many privileges. Alternatively
this
current Fedora contributors might be interested to send such PR ;)
I like this approach, but I was also thinking of a small tutorial/app
to actually package a piece of software as required, going through the
various steps but be a "fake" package that is only used to teach and
test with. This app could record the FAS user ID and assign a badge to
it once they complete the tutorial successfully. Sort of a base
starting point for all new packagersd that give both them some
confidence going in and the sponsors some confidence too about the
level of the new committers capabilities.
Well, in the Quick Docs, we already have Creating RPM packages [1]. It
has subpage "Publishing your software on Copr", which somehow covers the
publishing aspect. But honestly, when I was starting out, I spent some
time with those instructions, but could not understand them or complete
the tutorials. So one thing would be to revisit these instructions and
make the better — there is a task about moving them over to Package
Maintainer Docs [2], it was in progress at some point, but apparently
stalled now. After that, improvement could happen.
About every packager publishing their own test package, in Copr that can
be done for sure. If it is deemed too far from the official Fedora
repositories, the perhaps it could be done in staging. I have never
really used it, I cannot say if that is a good idea or not.
A similar but different idea I have is to create a "Fedora Packaging
Guidelines Web Course" that you can complete by yourself. It could be
implemented as a Git repository. For each entry in the the Review
Guidelines [3], there would be a directory with a specfile and a srpm.
For simplicity, we could first implement cases which fedora-review can
check automatically. The student's assignment would be to run
fedora-review on the specfile, find the error it gives, refer to the
Packaging Guidelines to figure out how to fix it, modify the specfile as
needed and run fedora-review again to check their answer. The assignment
is completed when fedora-review does not complain any more.
Later, the course could be expanded also to cases where there is no
automated check available, either by involving a mentor, or simply by
adding a SOLUTION file.
Awarding a badge for completing this course would be a good idea, if a
technical solution can be found.
I see this course as complementary to Vít's original proposal about the
onboarding package. The orboarding package tasks are about learning the
build system, certainly a required skill for packages. The course is
about learning the Guidelines. Currently the recommended method to do
that is to submit inofficial reviews to live Review Requests. That has
the advantage of exposing the applicant to real packages with real
problems, but 1) has no guarantee of producing an effective learning
path, the package that is picked may well be a very tricky case and thus
unsuitable for starting out and 2) is psychologically unsafe, because a
total newcomer must participate in discussion of two experts who are
actually trying to get a package into Fedora, not educating the packagers.
[1]: https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/quick-docs/creating-rpm-packages/
[2]: https://pagure.io/fedora-docs/package-maintainer-docs/issue/19
[3]:
https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/packaging-guidelines/ReviewGuidelines/#_package_review_process
packager to be already sponsored and they could go through the whole
process themeselves just with some light guidance if needed.
This could be extended in the future. E.g. next step could be:
3) Submit module update.
Apart from gaining experience, this could also help with the common
question "where should I start". And of course our sponsoring
guidelines
could be refreshed suggesting/requesting to take these steps at some
point.
Thoughts?
Personnaly I am for this type of approach since it is also clarifying
the roles a bit more too. It wouldn't hurt to outline what is expected
of a packager of Fedora Linux in general. You know expectations are
very often left unsaid thinking that roles and responsibilities fill in
the info, but that is not always the case.
Are you aware of the page "Package maintainer responsibilities" [4]? Is
there some aspects of the responsibilities that are not covered there?
[4]:
https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/fesco/Package_maintainer_responsibilities/
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