Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Re: GLEP 42 Critical News Reporting Round Two
On Sun, 2005-11-13 at 01:05 +0900, Jason Stubbs wrote: It is my opinion that the news reading application need not be integrated into portage. As far as I have understood it, the only real thing that anyone has required portage itself to do is to *automatically* spit out You have $n unread news messages. Please use $bleh to read them at certain times (after sync, after --pretend, before/after a merge). I don't see this as being something very complex. I would assume that some extra code would need to be written into the sync code somewhere to sort the messages. This, I get. What I'm wondering about is the `emerge --news` that is referred to every so often. emerge --news is just what people have been calling the news reader. As far as I can see, unless you *want* portage to handle the news reading, it should *not* have a --news option. To be honest, this is the part that I don't like the most. Integrating code into portage to copy files here and there based on some predefined rules and news readers reading and renaming files based on some predefined rules... A filesystem based API just doesn't seem very robust to change. I'd prefer that either the post-sync handling code is not integrated into portage and portage just triggers some external script - or - portage exposes an API (via python and bash) for accessing and updating news items. I'd prefer the latter but I get the impression that most prefer the former. I believe that we have been under the impression that you guys preferred to keep this out of portage as much as possible. I think an API built into portage *would* be the best method for this. -- Chris Gianelloni Release Engineering - Strategic Lead x86 Architecture Team Games - Developer Gentoo Linux signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Re: GLEP 42 Critical News Reporting Round Two
On Sat, 2005-11-12 at 13:39 +0900, Jason Stubbs wrote: On Saturday 12 November 2005 07:19, Stuart Herbert wrote: When we have emerge --news done, I keep seeing references to emerge --news but at the same time am seeing that news readers are external. What exactly is `emerge --news` meant to do? Print out You've got news!? Manage some external database? It is my opinion that the news reading application need not be integrated into portage. As far as I have understood it, the only real thing that anyone has required portage itself to do is to *automatically* spit out You have $n unread news messages. Please use $bleh to read them at certain times (after sync, after --pretend, before/after a merge). I don't see this as being something very complex. I would assume that some extra code would need to be written into the sync code somewhere to sort the messages. I wouldn't mind seeing something along the lines of /var/db/news directory (or something repo specific, whatever) that has a pretty simple format... -mm-dd-$blah-$lang.txt.unread -mm-dd-$blah-$lang.txt.read When you delete a message, it is gone. This means an external news reader (enews anyone?) that basically has the capability to read, skip, or delete these news items. I think this would be pretty simple to get done and covers the problem of messages being read or unread. Of course, this is all just an idea, so feel free to blow holes all in it. ;] -- Chris Gianelloni Release Engineering - Strategic Lead x86 Architecture Team Games - Developer Gentoo Linux signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Re: GLEP 42 Critical News Reporting Round Two
On Sunday 13 November 2005 00:34, Chris Gianelloni wrote: On Sat, 2005-11-12 at 13:39 +0900, Jason Stubbs wrote: On Saturday 12 November 2005 07:19, Stuart Herbert wrote: When we have emerge --news done, I keep seeing references to emerge --news but at the same time am seeing that news readers are external. What exactly is `emerge --news` meant to do? Print out You've got news!? Manage some external database? It is my opinion that the news reading application need not be integrated into portage. As far as I have understood it, the only real thing that anyone has required portage itself to do is to *automatically* spit out You have $n unread news messages. Please use $bleh to read them at certain times (after sync, after --pretend, before/after a merge). I don't see this as being something very complex. I would assume that some extra code would need to be written into the sync code somewhere to sort the messages. This, I get. What I'm wondering about is the `emerge --news` that is referred to every so often. I wouldn't mind seeing something along the lines of /var/db/news directory (or something repo specific, whatever) that has a pretty simple format... -mm-dd-$blah-$lang.txt.unread -mm-dd-$blah-$lang.txt.read When you delete a message, it is gone. This means an external news reader (enews anyone?) that basically has the capability to read, skip, or delete these news items. I think this would be pretty simple to get done and covers the problem of messages being read or unread. Of course, this is all just an idea, so feel free to blow holes all in it. ;] To be honest, this is the part that I don't like the most. Integrating code into portage to copy files here and there based on some predefined rules and news readers reading and renaming files based on some predefined rules... A filesystem based API just doesn't seem very robust to change. I'd prefer that either the post-sync handling code is not integrated into portage and portage just triggers some external script - or - portage exposes an API (via python and bash) for accessing and updating news items. I'd prefer the latter but I get the impression that most prefer the former. -- Jason Stubbs -- gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Re: GLEP 42 Critical News Reporting Round Two
Jason Stubbs wrote: To be honest, this is the part that I don't like the most. Integrating code into portage to copy files here and there based on some predefined rules and news readers reading and renaming files based on some predefined rules... A filesystem based API just doesn't seem very robust to change. I'd prefer that either the post-sync handling code is not integrated into portage and portage just triggers some external script - or - portage exposes an API (via python and bash) for accessing and updating news items. I'd prefer the latter but I get the impression that most prefer the former. - append message to /var/spool/mail/portage alternative 1 (very very sober install): - less /var/spool/mail/portage - rm /var/spool/mail/portage alternative 2 (sober install): - vi /var/spool/mail/portage alternative 3 (for those having `mail`, `mutt` or whatever that reads mbox) - mail -u portage (program allows deletion) alternative 4 (those that don't like mbox reading) - either run mbox2mail or - allow portage to write to a pipe to `mail` instead of append to /var/spool/mail/portage (would be the best solution IMHO) It doesn't have to be so complicated, IMHO. Most of the tools are already there, because traditional unix systems had this notification system built in. Imagine how nice you could benefit from a shell that tells you you've got (new) mail if you log in as root. Appending in the right format to /var/spool/mail/portage doesn't need an MTA either. -- Fabian Groffen Gentoo for Mac OS X Project -- Interim Lead -- gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Re: GLEP 42 Critical News Reporting Round Two
On 10-11-2005 20:55:37 +, Stuart Herbert wrote: Ok, you want a reaction, because you are Feeling Blue[1], right. On Mon, 2005-11-07 at 20:11 +0100, Grobian wrote: Ciaran McCreesh wrote: That's your first misconception right there. Most users don't sign up for things. Doesn't matter. I think it does. I believe that is the root cause of our difficulty in getting news to our users. We rely on our users coming to us to find the news. If they don't do that, they don't get the news. Our aim is to put the news in front of 100% of our userbase. Not the small fractions who check each of the places where news is currently published. You describe here (and in your diary) the aim to reach 100% of our user base. Wow, nice thing. Discussions on whether you will succeed or not, are out of the question right now, it's just your aim. Good. I hope you will succeed! Besides that, I see no arguments why users don't. No proof either. No proof?!? Did you read the original blog posting which kicked this off? Or the thread in the forums where our users claim the Apache upgrade was a surprise - even though this was a well-trailed change? That's just one change. I scoured the forums a bit and looked what users were telling. I wasn't surprised. What do you expect from a user telling it all doesn't work any more, who doesn't run etc-update just because after every emerge --upgrade --world it has over 100 files to update? Such user just ignores the importance of the tool, and will most certainly ignore anything else that we try to help this user. This was just one example. It is a very humble attempt to try and help these users, but they simply chose the wrong Linux distro, because Gentoo expects you to be an system administrator, not a user. At least that's my vision on it. I think we can agree that Gentoo requires a user to know/realise more than a Fedora/SuSe/Ubuntu user. I don't understand the problem from your point of view. No, scratch that. I don't understand your point of view. You're coming across to me as someone who doesn't believe there's a problem that needs solving. I am just in the opinion that we lack a system where users can find the information they need. That would help a certain type of users, absolutely not all of them. So yes, after that, this problem needs solving, perhaps. Personalisation using portage is a sweet thing! Here comes the point where I can express my doubt about the 100%. There are unfortunately users who are too hard to help, if you get what I mean. I'm tempted to forcibly co-opt you into the PHP team before we put dev-lang/php live. This would allow you to experience the situation for yourself. Maybe that would give you another perspective? ;-) Might be a very good excercise for me (and you?). As you might guess from my comment above, I simply think _communication_ is the big problem, as I see being a problem in many places around here. Not that perfect communication solves the problem entirely, but it allows to reply in the sense of 'rtfw'. If you're serious here, feel free to contact me (off-list) to see what we can arrange. [1] http://stu.gnqs.org/diary/gentoo.php/2005/11/10/feeling_blue -- Fabian Groffen Gentoo for Mac OS X Project -- Interim Lead -- gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Re: GLEP 42 Critical News Reporting Round Two
On Fri, 2005-11-11 at 10:03 +0100, Grobian wrote: On 10-11-2005 20:55:37 +, Stuart Herbert wrote: I am just in the opinion that we lack a system where users can find the information they need. That would help a certain type of users, absolutely not all of them. So yes, after that, this problem needs solving, perhaps. Personalisation using portage is a sweet thing! Here comes the point where I can express my doubt about the 100%. There are unfortunately users who are too hard to help, if you get what I mean. I think putting the information in front of the users eyes is all that can be asked. If they choose to ignore it there is nothing that we can do. This proposal will accomplish that and at that point we can tell Ciaran Goob Job. Same for the config updates that you mentioned above. -- Fabian Groffen Gentoo for Mac OS X Project -- Interim Lead -- Tres Melton IRC Gentoo: RiverRat signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Re: GLEP 42 Critical News Reporting Round Two
On Fri, 2005-11-11 at 10:03 +0100, Grobian wrote: Ok, you want a reaction, because you are Feeling Blue[1], right. The only reaction I want is for us to meet the goals that I have set out, instead of trying to move those goals. You describe here (and in your diary) the aim to reach 100% of our user base. Wow, nice thing. Discussions on whether you will succeed or not, are out of the question right now, it's just your aim. Good. I hope you will succeed! Thanks. I scoured the forums a bit and looked what users were telling. I wasn't surprised. What do you expect from a user telling it all doesn't work any more, who doesn't run etc-update just because after every emerge --upgrade --world it has over 100 files to update? Such user just ignores the importance of the tool, and will most certainly ignore anything else that we try to help this user. This was just one example. When we have emerge --news done, and users come along and complain that they didn't know about something, then *maybe* we have some moral high ground to stand on. Personally, I don't care for the whole approach of moral high ground on this one. Gentoo's not just a cool toy. We're also responsible to delivering the best we can for our users. I'd like to think that includes the best news. It is a very humble attempt to try and help these users, but they simply chose the wrong Linux distro, because Gentoo expects you to be an system administrator, not a user. At least that's my vision on it. I think we can agree that Gentoo requires a user to know/realise more than a Fedora/SuSe/Ubuntu user. I agree that the required knowledge level is higher than certain other distros. But I don't think experience or ability is the issue. I don't believe that experience or ability has anything to do with whether or not that person keeps up to date with important Gentoo news. Even if a user keeps up with the news, there will be lapses due to sickness, holiday, pressure of other tasks, and so on. One of the nice benefits of emerge --news is that the news will be there for them when they need it. I am just in the opinion that we lack a system where users can find the information they need. Agreed, but there's no way that every user (or even a majority of users) will take the trouble to go looking for that information. I'm making that assertion partly on common-sense, and partly on my experience of running a F/OSS project back in the mid-nineties. I think this is where it'd help if Gentoo had some way of working out the install base, and comparing that to some meaningful stats from www.g.o et al, so that we could have a discussion based on facts that could stand up to scrutiny from both sides. However, we don't really have a way atm that I know about to get either of these stats. Maybe infra could do some rsyncd log analysis to put together a rough guestimate, and maybe the GDP could post some useful stats from www.g.o as I've twice asked for now. There again, maybe we don't really want those stats. Who knows - they might show that our userbase is nowhere near the size we think it is :) Here comes the point where I can express my doubt about the 100%. There are unfortunately users who are too hard to help, if you get what I mean. I agree. But at least we will have done our best, which I'd like to think is what having that nice @gentoo.org email address is all about. As you might guess from my comment above, I simply think _communication_ is the big problem, as I see being a problem in many places around here. I think that covers a multitude of sins though. I'm not trying to fix them all. I just want to fix this one problem at a time. The one I'm concerned with is ensuring that the news we already generate reaches all of our users. That's all I care about right now. I don't actually care whether it's done by emerge --news; I will happily support a more effective solution. Not that perfect communication solves the problem entirely, but it allows to reply in the sense of 'rtfw'. rtfn, surely? :) If you're serious here, feel free to contact me (off-list) to see what we can arrange. Drop into #gentoo-apache and let's talk :) Best regards, Stu -- Stuart Herbert [EMAIL PROTECTED] Gentoo Developer http://www.gentoo.org/ http://stu.gnqs.org/diary/ GnuGP key id# F9AFC57C available from http://pgp.mit.edu Key fingerprint = 31FB 50D4 1F88 E227 F319 C549 0C2F 80BA F9AF C57C -- signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Re: GLEP 42 Critical News Reporting Round Two
On Saturday 12 November 2005 07:19, Stuart Herbert wrote: When we have emerge --news done, I keep seeing references to emerge --news but at the same time am seeing that news readers are external. What exactly is `emerge --news` meant to do? Print out You've got news!? Manage some external database? -- Jason Stubbs -- gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Re: GLEP 42 Critical News Reporting Round Two
On Mon, 2005-11-07 at 20:11 +0100, Grobian wrote: Ciaran McCreesh wrote: That's your first misconception right there. Most users don't sign up for things. Doesn't matter. I think it does. I believe that is the root cause of our difficulty in getting news to our users. We rely on our users coming to us to find the news. If they don't do that, they don't get the news. Our aim is to put the news in front of 100% of our userbase. Not the small fractions who check each of the places where news is currently published. Besides that, I see no arguments why users don't. No proof either. No proof?!? Did you read the original blog posting which kicked this off? Or the thread in the forums where our users claim the Apache upgrade was a surprise - even though this was a well-trailed change? That's just one change. I don't understand the problem from your point of view. No, scratch that. I don't understand your point of view. You're coming across to me as someone who doesn't believe there's a problem that needs solving. I'm tempted to forcibly co-opt you into the PHP team before we put dev-lang/php live. This would allow you to experience the situation for yourself. Maybe that would give you another perspective? ;-) Best regards, Stu -- Stuart Herbert [EMAIL PROTECTED] Gentoo Developer http://www.gentoo.org/ http://stu.gnqs.org/diary/ GnuGP key id# F9AFC57C available from http://pgp.mit.edu Key fingerprint = 31FB 50D4 1F88 E227 F319 C549 0C2F 80BA F9AF C57C -- signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Re: GLEP 42 Critical News Reporting Round Two
On Mon, 07 Nov 2005 19:32:38 +0100 Grobian [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: | So, what list should the user that wants to receive those | **important** messages sign up to? That's your first misconception right there. Most users don't sign up for things. -- Ciaran McCreesh : Gentoo Developer (Anti-XML, anti-newbie conspiracy) Mail: ciaranm at gentoo.org Web : http://dev.gentoo.org/~ciaranm pgpAYpyjB4Bmd.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Re: GLEP 42 Critical News Reporting Round Two
[snip]
After going through the list, I got the impression there is simply no
place where such messages clearly would go. gentoo-announce sounds as
the best option to go for, but its description somehow suggests not.
Though, subscribed to gentoo-announce means you get nothing but GLSA
announcements and sometimes a new release announcements.
So, what list should the user that wants to receive those **important**
messages sign up to?
I still think that *this* is the reason why people don't seem to know
about the important changes, because there is no obvious place where to
get them. It's quite likely that a user that wanted to see the
new-style apache message didn't see it because it simply didn't appear
on a list the user hoped to see it. It was in the GWN of 2005-09-12,
but I can imagine a user didn't expect it to be there, as there is no
description at al for GWN list, and the **important** information will
always have to be extracted from the GWN, since each GWN covers multiple
items in a few categories which not every user might interest.
Send **important** messages separate to a non-discussion mailing list,
and I'm sure that many people will be happy to read it -- just like
gentoo-announce.
[/snip]
Above and beyond Ciaran's point...
You are correct, there is no clear cut place for them to go...that's how
this thing got started in the first place. However why force users to
sign up for something which can't be appropriately filtered (installed
packages, keywords, use flags, profiles, etc.) when all of them are
already signed up for something that can track and filter, portage.
I wouldn't necessarily bother signing up for an errata list if said list
was going to provide me with *all* the errata out there. The reason that
a mailing list works for RedHat is because RHN tracks what packages you
have installed on your system on *their* server (again something you
have to sign up for, and worse send them info about your configuration),
so the filtering is done for you. We will *never* do something like
this, we have a client side tool that can identify what is installed
already...why not use it?
--
Daniel Ostrow
Gentoo Foundation Board of Trustees
Gentoo/{PPC,PPC64,DevRel}
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
--
gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Re: GLEP 42 Critical News Reporting Round Two
Ciaran McCreesh wrote: On Mon, 07 Nov 2005 19:32:38 +0100 Grobian [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: | So, what list should the user that wants to receive those | **important** messages sign up to? That's your first misconception right there. Most users don't sign up for things. Doesn't matter. If the important messages aren't posted or you have to extract them yourself the effect is the same. Besides that, I see no arguments why users don't. No proof either. Forcing a push-based method on someone who likes pull-based methods is evil. The least you can do to make everybody happy, is allow pull-based access to the important news items, and devote some more words on how to disable your 'feature'. -- Fabian Groffen Gentoo for Mac OS X Project -- Interim Lead -- gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Re: GLEP 42 Critical News Reporting Round Two
[snip]
After going through the list, I got the impression there is simply no
place where such messages clearly would go. gentoo-announce sounds as
the best option to go for, but its description somehow suggests not.
Though, subscribed to gentoo-announce means you get nothing but GLSA
announcements and sometimes a new release announcements.
So, what list should the user that wants to receive those **important**
messages sign up to?
I still think that *this* is the reason why people don't seem to know
about the important changes, because there is no obvious place where to
get them. It's quite likely that a user that wanted to see the
new-style apache message didn't see it because it simply didn't appear
on a list the user hoped to see it. It was in the GWN of 2005-09-12,
but I can imagine a user didn't expect it to be there, as there is no
description at al for GWN list, and the **important** information will
always have to be extracted from the GWN, since each GWN covers multiple
items in a few categories which not every user might interest.
Send **important** messages separate to a non-discussion mailing list,
and I'm sure that many people will be happy to read it -- just like
gentoo-announce.
[/snip]
Above and beyond Ciaran's point...
You are correct, there is no clear cut place for them to go...that's how
this thing got started in the first place. However why force users to
sign up for something which can't be appropriately filtered (installed
packages, keywords, use flags, profiles, etc.) when all of them are
already signed up for something that can track and filter, portage.
I wouldn't necessarily bother signing up for an errata list if said list
was going to provide me with *all* the errata out there. The reason that
a mailing list works for RedHat is because RHN tracks what packages you
have installed on your system on *their* server (again something you
have to sign up for, and worse send them info about your configuration),
so the filtering is done for you. We will *never* do something like
this, we have a client side tool that can identify what is installed
already...why not use it?
--
Daniel Ostrow
Gentoo Foundation Board of Trustees
Gentoo/{PPC,PPC64,DevRel}
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
--
Daniel Ostrow
Gentoo Foundation Board of Trustees
Gentoo/{PPC,PPC64,DevRel}
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
--
gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Re: GLEP 42 Critical News Reporting Round Two
On Mon, 2005-11-07 at 14:02 -0500, Daniel Ostrow wrote:
[snip]
After going through the list, I got the impression there is simply no
place where such messages clearly would go. gentoo-announce sounds as
the best option to go for, but its description somehow suggests not.
Though, subscribed to gentoo-announce means you get nothing but GLSA
announcements and sometimes a new release announcements.
So, what list should the user that wants to receive those **important**
messages sign up to?
I still think that *this* is the reason why people don't seem to know
about the important changes, because there is no obvious place where to
get them. It's quite likely that a user that wanted to see the
new-style apache message didn't see it because it simply didn't appear
on a list the user hoped to see it. It was in the GWN of 2005-09-12,
but I can imagine a user didn't expect it to be there, as there is no
description at al for GWN list, and the **important** information will
always have to be extracted from the GWN, since each GWN covers multiple
items in a few categories which not every user might interest.
Send **important** messages separate to a non-discussion mailing list,
and I'm sure that many people will be happy to read it -- just like
gentoo-announce.
[/snip]
Above and beyond Ciaran's point...
You are correct, there is no clear cut place for them to go...that's how
this thing got started in the first place. However why force users to
sign up for something which can't be appropriately filtered (installed
packages, keywords, use flags, profiles, etc.) when all of them are
already signed up for something that can track and filter, portage.
I wouldn't necessarily bother signing up for an errata list if said list
was going to provide me with *all* the errata out there. The reason that
a mailing list works for RedHat is because RHN tracks what packages you
have installed on your system on *their* server (again something you
have to sign up for, and worse send them info about your configuration),
so the filtering is done for you. We will *never* do something like
this, we have a client side tool that can identify what is installed
already...why not use it?
Err...sorry for the double post...mail client error.
Oh...and before anyone goes nuts...note I said why force users to sign
up to such a list *not* we will not provide such a list.
--
Daniel Ostrow
Gentoo Foundation Board of Trustees
Gentoo/{PPC,PPC64,DevRel}
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
--
gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Re: GLEP 42 Critical News Reporting Round Two
On Mon, 07 Nov 2005 20:11:23 +0100 Grobian [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: | Besides that, I see no arguments why users don't. No proof either. Have a look at how amazingly well certain recent upgrades have gone... | Forcing a push-based method on someone who likes pull-based methods | is evil. The least you can do to make everybody happy, is allow | pull-based access to the important news items, and devote some more | words on how to disable your 'feature'. Why does it need more words? It already has a sentence, and that's all that's needed. -- Ciaran McCreesh : Gentoo Developer (Anti-XML, anti-newbie conspiracy) Mail: ciaranm at gentoo.org Web : http://dev.gentoo.org/~ciaranm pgp72SL3NUCsg.pgp Description: PGP signature
