Re: Supporting Gtk+ Maintenance

2007-05-27 Thread Philip Withnall
Yeah, that was me. I've since stopped, and I'm talking with Tor
Lindqvist about how I could be more useful. He's suggesting I go through
the list of unloved patches and review them, which sounds fair enough.

Philip

On Sun, 2007-05-27 at 12:39 -0400, Matthias Clasen wrote:
 On 3/15/07, Federico Mena Quintero [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 
  Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to do this:
 
  - Get the latest GTK+ from svn trunk.
 
  - Go through each of the unreviewed patches and classify them
  informally:
 
  - obsolete patch which does not apply as-is to the sources
(you can use patch --dry-run to test this easily without
screwing up your source tree)
  - big patch which needs detailed testing/review
  - small patch which could be tested/reviewed in a few minutes
 
 
 I see that somebody took up this task now. While I appreciate the effort,
 I don't think that a mere applies/doesn't apply  small/big classification of
 patches helps _that_ much with the patch review.
 
 I have started a small patch review checklist in
 http://live.gnome.org/GtkTasks#P1
 that should help people who want to bring patches in good shape.
 
 Matthias
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Re: GTK+ maintenance

2007-05-23 Thread Tristan Van Berkom
On Wed, 2007-05-23 at 14:57 +0200, Vincent Untz wrote:
[...]
 I'm not exactly sure what you want the board to consider. The plan is
 not let companies develop GTK+ and hope everything will go well, but
 tell companies that if they want a better GTK+, this is what they
 should do.
 
 Maybe your point is that we shouldn't just dismiss the Foundation
 should hire someone option. The board is exploring various ways to help
 the GTK+ developer community, and we're not rejecting this option. It is
 still on the list, but, as it was already pointed out, it comes with
 some issues.
 
 Also note that it's not clear to me if most GTK+ developers want the
 Foundation to hire someone or not.

Hi Vincent,
None of that is clear to me either, I was really just trying
to bring some points that struck me as relevent to light, and yes I dont
think that the possibility of hiring somebody should be dissmissed
(and thankyou for clarifying that you are taking it into consideration).

The simple fact, outlined clearly by Tim's mail[1] (which originally
caught my attention), is that more secondary contributors and patch
flood is not really going to help the state of affairs; we need more
people playing central roles in gtk+ development and maintainership. 

The GtkTasks[2] initiative is a great start IMO, its yet to be seen
if that initiative alone will give us the structure needed to get
gtk+ properly refactored and new features properly reviewed in
reasonable timeframes.

Cheers,
-Tristan

[1]http://mail.gnome.org/archives/gtk-devel-list/2007-March/msg00122.html
[2]http://live.gnome.org/GtkTasks


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Re: GTK+ maintenance

2007-05-16 Thread Xavier Bestel
On Wed, 2007-05-16 at 09:06 +0100, Martyn Russell wrote:
  So, right now, the Board is not considering the option of hiring people
  to hack/do technical things. I'm not saying we'll never do this, but
  doing this has a lot of implications (managing the employees wouldn't be
  easy, people could start thinking that there's no need to contribute to
  GTK+ since the GNOME Foundation has developers for this, etc.), and we'd
  prefer to explore other ways to fix the issue first.
 
 I doubt that.
 
 Imendio (among other companies) have slowly been putting more resources
 into GTK+, is there any evidence that shows people are contributing any
 less?

I think that's what he says: hiring GTK+ hackers by the board = bad,
but hiring GTK+ hackers by companies = good.

Xav


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Re: GTK+ maintenance

2007-05-15 Thread Olav Vitters
On Thu, Apr 26, 2007 at 01:08:10AM +0200, Vincent Untz wrote:
 It'd be useful to know how many more people are needed to have things
 working more smoothly. Let's talk about full-time people: would 2 people
 be enough? Or do we need much more than 2, like 8 full-time developers?
 This is the kind of information that will help us convince companies to
 put more manpower into GTK+.

Some comparison...

http://www.trolltech.com/company
Trolltech is a software company with two product lines: Qt and Qtopia.
 We currently have 200 employees working at offices worldwide.

This includes a lot of other things (you only want Qt devs), but
still... 200 vs 2 / 8?

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Re: GTK+ maintenance

2007-05-15 Thread Tristan Van Berkom
On Tue, 2007-05-15 at 22:29 +0200, Olav Vitters wrote:
 On Thu, Apr 26, 2007 at 01:08:10AM +0200, Vincent Untz wrote:
[...]
 
 Some comparison...
 
 http://www.trolltech.com/company
 Trolltech is a software company with two product lines: Qt and Qtopia.
  We currently have 200 employees working at offices worldwide.
 
 This includes a lot of other things (you only want Qt devs), but
 still... 200 vs 2 / 8?
 

This is not representative of anything.

Before I go running my trap I'll note that I am not a gtk+ maintainer so
I am not qualified to answer Vincent's query, but it should be noted
that people writing patches for gtk+ are in no way lacking - this is a
very popular project and has attracted alot of attention.

Its been clearly stated that core maintainers are whats lacking, people
that can be trusted to review large patches, do refactoring work and
call shots so to speak, in my own personal opinion I think gtk+ could do
fine with 2 extra Mattias Clasens or 2 more Tim Janiks, the question is;
where are these experienced people to be found ?

Will the foundation be considering hiring people from the gnome
community ? (I would suppose so...) will there be location constraints 
(will developers have to move) ? will developers have to well known
and trusted or will they have to be highly decorated ? (a healty mix
of either/or/both I suppose...)

Those kind of answers will also narrow down the possibilities of finding
qualified people to be core maintainers of gtk+.

Cheers,
   -Tristan


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Re: GTK+ maintenance

2007-05-15 Thread Vincent Untz
Hi,

Le mardi 15 mai 2007, à 16:53 -0400, Tristan Van Berkom a écrit :
 Its been clearly stated that core maintainers are whats lacking, people
 that can be trusted to review large patches, do refactoring work and
 call shots so to speak, in my own personal opinion I think gtk+ could do
 fine with 2 extra Mattias Clasens or 2 more Tim Janiks, the question is;
 where are these experienced people to be found ?

Well, if they don't exist, we can try to grow some of them :-)

 Will the foundation be considering hiring people from the gnome
 community ? (I would suppose so...) will there be location constraints 
 (will developers have to move) ? will developers have to well known
 and trusted or will they have to be highly decorated ? (a healty mix
 of either/or/both I suppose...)

So, right now, the Board is not considering the option of hiring people
to hack/do technical things. I'm not saying we'll never do this, but
doing this has a lot of implications (managing the employees wouldn't be
easy, people could start thinking that there's no need to contribute to
GTK+ since the GNOME Foundation has developers for this, etc.), and we'd
prefer to explore other ways to fix the issue first.

For example, a lot of companies do have an interest in GTK+ but are not
actively participating upstream. I've been in contact with some of them
to see if they could get some of their developers to freely work on
upstream as part of their job. People have been open about this idea,
but I'm sure we could come with better arguments to really convince
them.

Vincent

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Re: GTK+ maintenance

2007-05-15 Thread Havoc Pennington
Hi,

Vincent Untz wrote:
 For example, a lot of companies do have an interest in GTK+ but are not
 actively participating upstream. I've been in contact with some of them
 to see if they could get some of their developers to freely work on
 upstream as part of their job. People have been open about this idea,
 but I'm sure we could come with better arguments to really convince
 them.
 

Two good angles might be:
  - bugzilla stats (number of bugs, response time to new bugs, etc.)
  - details on specific great new features / enhancements a maintainer
could implement (and point out how these benefit the company in
question's products, as well as the whole ecosystem)

Havoc
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GTK+ maintenance

2007-04-25 Thread Vincent Untz
Hi,

Tim has been doing a fantastic job at creating a list of tasks where
people can help [1]. I really believe this is a good first step to get
more people involved. Having more non-permanent tasks would probably be
great, but well, that's not the goal of this mail :-)

In the past few weeks, I've talked a bit with the Foundation advisory
board members. This is not something that's finished and I'll continue
with this, but this already gave me a rough idea of how things work in
companies wrt GTK+.

Among the AB members, there are basically small and big companies. Small
companies are already quite involved within the community and contribute
as much as possible (since, well, they also need to find some money).

It's (not surpsisingly) a bit easier for big companies to put more
manpower, although there's no hard guarantee for this to happen. And it
might not be easy for people who've not been involved before to
contribute to upstream GTK+. For example, it seems that a lack of
documentation about GTK+ internals doesn't help here (is this something
that could be added to the list of tasks for volunteers?). Of course,
another essential aspect is that experienced GTK+ developers/maintainers
will need to make time to help get joining developers feel at home.

It'd be useful to know how many more people are needed to have things
working more smoothly. Let's talk about full-time people: would 2 people
be enough? Or do we need much more than 2, like 8 full-time developers?
This is the kind of information that will help us convince companies to
put more manpower into GTK+.

Obviously, this not an issue that will get fixed within the next week,
but I do hope that we can start to see more people starting to join in
the next few weeks.

Thanks,

Vincent

[1] http://mail.gnome.org/archives/gtk-devel-list/2007-April/msg00058.html

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Re: Fwd: Supporting Gtk+ Maintenance

2007-03-29 Thread Vincent Untz
Le lundi 26 mars 2007, à 14:12, Quim Gil a écrit :
 On 3/14/07, Tim Janik wrote:
 
  Hello Foundation Board.
 
 Hello GTK+ team.
 
  The Gtk+ project is in dire lack of new maintainers, mostly to review (...)
 
 Thanks for this report, and actually thanks for the first report you
 sent back in Christmas. On thaty time the board was in transition, but
 we already took your points and since then this has been one of the
 main points in our agenda.
 
 This is why GTK+ was one of the 2 main issues presented to the
 advisory board members this week, together with Documentation. There
 are lots of aspects to fix and improve in the GNOME project, but the
 board has decided to put these two on top of the agenda.
 
 A practical conclusion of the discussion this week was that we need a
 space for discussion where the GTK+ team, the board, the advisory
 board companies and probably any other key GTK+ contributor /
 stakeholder / user can share this discussion. An official channel
 where we can hold a discussion from these different perspectives in
 order to solve the main issues and push GTK+ to the bright horizon it
 deserves. This channel might be online+offline, something like a
 combination of a specific mailing list + meetings in relevant
 conferences + ...
 
 The GTK+ core team has the initiative proposing the space and the
 bootstrapping process of collaboration. Let's use this list to decide
 the new channel.

I'm wondering if gtk-devel-list is the place where the discussion about
collaboration should be happening: I don't know if having a mix of
technical discussions and collaboration discussions is good or not.
Having a separate mailing list might help, but it might also be a stupid
idea :-)

What does the GTK+ team think?

Vincent

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Re: Fwd: Supporting Gtk+ Maintenance

2007-03-29 Thread Murray Cumming
On Thu, 2007-03-29 at 21:25 +0200, Vincent Untz wrote:
 Le lundi 26 mars 2007, à 14:12, Quim Gil a écrit :
  On 3/14/07, Tim Janik wrote:
  
   Hello Foundation Board.
  
  Hello GTK+ team.
  
   The Gtk+ project is in dire lack of new maintainers, mostly to review 
   (...)
  
  Thanks for this report, and actually thanks for the first report you
  sent back in Christmas. On thaty time the board was in transition, but
  we already took your points and since then this has been one of the
  main points in our agenda.
  
  This is why GTK+ was one of the 2 main issues presented to the
  advisory board members this week, together with Documentation. There
  are lots of aspects to fix and improve in the GNOME project, but the
  board has decided to put these two on top of the agenda.
  
  A practical conclusion of the discussion this week was that we need a
  space for discussion where the GTK+ team, the board, the advisory
  board companies and probably any other key GTK+ contributor /
  stakeholder / user can share this discussion. An official channel
  where we can hold a discussion from these different perspectives in
  order to solve the main issues and push GTK+ to the bright horizon it
  deserves. This channel might be online+offline, something like a
  combination of a specific mailing list + meetings in relevant
  conferences + ...
  
  The GTK+ core team has the initiative proposing the space and the
  bootstrapping process of collaboration. Let's use this list to decide
  the new channel.
 
 I'm wondering if gtk-devel-list is the place where the discussion about
 collaboration should be happening: I don't know if having a mix of
 technical discussions and collaboration discussions is good or not.
 Having a separate mailing list might help, but it might also be a stupid
 idea :-)
 
 What does the GTK+ team think?

If it's going to be a public discussion then it should be on
gtk-devel-list. It would be silly to create a new mailing list just to
discuss this one subject. If it's meant to be a private discussion then
a CC list will probably do it, with the advisory and board lists in it.

You might also want to arrange an extra conference call with the
advisory board if that's more to their liking. But that will probably
take 2 or 3 months to arrange.

I'm disappointed that this has been turned into a discussion about
discussing.


-- 
Murray Cumming
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
www.murrayc.com
www.openismus.com

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Re: Fwd: Supporting Gtk+ Maintenance

2007-03-29 Thread Vincent Untz
Hi Murray,

Le jeudi 29 mars 2007, à 23:27, Murray Cumming a écrit :
 On Thu, 2007-03-29 at 21:25 +0200, Vincent Untz wrote:
  I'm wondering if gtk-devel-list is the place where the discussion about
  collaboration should be happening: I don't know if having a mix of
  technical discussions and collaboration discussions is good or not.
  Having a separate mailing list might help, but it might also be a stupid
  idea :-)
  
  What does the GTK+ team think?
 
 If it's going to be a public discussion then it should be on
 gtk-devel-list. It would be silly to create a new mailing list just to
 discuss this one subject. If it's meant to be a private discussion then
 a CC list will probably do it, with the advisory and board lists in it.

My point is: this is up to the GTK+ team to decide. I personnally don't
think there'll be anything private.

 You might also want to arrange an extra conference call with the
 advisory board if that's more to their liking. But that will probably
 take 2 or 3 months to arrange.

This is definitely something we'll do if people feel it's necessary.

 I'm disappointed that this has been turned into a discussion about
 discussing.

We're only trying to know how the GTK+ team wants to work. This is only
a first step :-)

Vincent

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Re: Supporting Gtk+ Maintenance

2007-03-28 Thread Loïc Minier
On Tue, Mar 27, 2007, Behdad Esfahbod wrote:
  Is there a way to check programatically (scripts/patch-command/etc)
  that if a patch is applicable to be applied with p0 or p1?
 patch --dry-run

 [ And the preferred order to try patch level is probably 1 0 2; at
 least that's what Debian tools do since bugs such as
 http://bugs.debian.org/365524.  The logic is in the cdbs package:
 /usr/share/cdbs/1/rules/simple-patchsys.mk ]

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Re: Supporting Gtk+ Maintenance

2007-03-27 Thread Behdad Esfahbod
On Tue, 2007-03-27 at 11:27 -0400, मयंक जैन (makuchaku) wrote:
 On 3/16/07, Federico Mena Quintero [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
  Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to do this:
 
  - Get the latest GTK+ from svn trunk.
 
  - Go through each of the unreviewed patches and classify them
  informally:
 
  - obsolete patch which does not apply as-is to the sources
(you can use patch --dry-run to test this easily without
screwing up your source tree)
  - big patch which needs detailed testing/review
  - small patch which could be tested/reviewed in a few minutes
 
 
 29 patches were categorized. More to go...
 
 Is there a way to check programatically (scripts/patch-command/etc)
 that if a patch is applicable to be applied with p0 or p1?

patch --dry-run

$ cat gnome-patch
#!/bin/bash

if test $# '!=' 1; then
echo usage: $0 attachmentid
exit 2
fi

ID=$1
FILE=attachment.cgi?id=$ID
OUT=attachment-$ID.patch
wget http://bugzilla.gnome.org/$FILE; -O $OUT 
patch --dry-run -p0  $OUT 
patch -p0  $OUT 
echo Patch $OUT applied cleanly.


 If so, then this process of categorizing patches can be automated i suppose.
 
 ...any comments, suggestions :)
 
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Re: Supporting Gtk+ Maintenance

2007-03-23 Thread मयंक जैन ( makuchaku)
On 3/23/07, Behdad Esfahbod [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 Setting bugs with outdated patches to needinfo may be a bit problematic
 as the bugsquad team has a tendency to close needinfo bugs after some
 time...  Also they won't show in some default search queries..  Just
 removing the patch keyword, or marking the patch as needs-work may be
 better, but that's just my idea.

Obviously the objective it to get this anomoly to the patch
submitter's attention. But as Behdad you just said.. then whats the
best way to go about it?

One option I see is to re-assign the bug to this patch submitter 
once he resubmits a working patch, re-assign it to the gtk-bugs list.

Would that be good enough?

:)
Makuchaku
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Re: Supporting Gtk+ Maintenance

2007-03-23 Thread Behdad Esfahbod
On Fri, 2007-03-23 at 15:42 +0530, मयंक जैन (makuchaku) wrote:
 On 3/23/07, Behdad Esfahbod [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
  Setting bugs with outdated patches to needinfo may be a bit problematic
  as the bugsquad team has a tendency to close needinfo bugs after some
  time...  Also they won't show in some default search queries..  Just
  removing the patch keyword, or marking the patch as needs-work may be
  better, but that's just my idea.
 
 Obviously the objective it to get this anomoly to the patch
 submitter's attention. But as Behdad you just said.. then whats the
 best way to go about it?
 
 One option I see is to re-assign the bug to this patch submitter 
 once he resubmits a working patch, re-assign it to the gtk-bugs list.
 
 Would that be good enough?

The submitters gets mail about all changes to the bug (by default).  So
no real need to do anything specific.  Just marking as needs-work and a
two line comment about the patch status should be enough.  Assigning to
him may work better as he will see it in his bug page, but note that
other people can update an outdated patch too, and many times do.


 :)
 Makuchaku
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 Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.
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Re: Supporting Gtk+ Maintenance

2007-03-22 Thread मयंक जैन ( makuchaku)
On 3/16/07, Federico Mena Quintero [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 - Go through each of the unreviewed patches and classify them
 informally:

 - obsolete patch which does not apply as-is to the sources
   (you can use patch --dry-run to test this easily without
   screwing up your source tree)
 - big patch which needs detailed testing/review
 - small patch which could be tested/reviewed in a few minutes

I've triaged the first 5 bugs for combobox category.
Now ehn a patch fails, I create a needinfo in the bug. But can this
needinfo be directed to a particular user?

In bugzilla.redhat.com, one can create a needinfo for a particular
user  then it becomes his responsibility to cancel that info. This
assures speedier responses. Is it somehow possible to do the same with
Gnome BZ?

Work is on... :)

Makuchaku
http://www.makuchaku.info/blog
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Re: Supporting Gtk+ Maintenance

2007-03-22 Thread Behdad Esfahbod
On Thu, 2007-03-22 at 12:25 -0400, मयंक जैन (makuchaku) wrote:
 On 3/16/07, Federico Mena Quintero [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
  - Go through each of the unreviewed patches and classify them
  informally:
 
  - obsolete patch which does not apply as-is to the sources
(you can use patch --dry-run to test this easily without
screwing up your source tree)
  - big patch which needs detailed testing/review
  - small patch which could be tested/reviewed in a few minutes
 
 I've triaged the first 5 bugs for combobox category.
 Now ehn a patch fails, I create a needinfo in the bug. But can this
 needinfo be directed to a particular user?
 
 In bugzilla.redhat.com, one can create a needinfo for a particular
 user  then it becomes his responsibility to cancel that info. This
 assures speedier responses. Is it somehow possible to do the same with
 Gnome BZ?
 
 Work is on... :)

Thanks for all the work!

Setting bugs with outdated patches to needinfo may be a bit problematic
as the bugsquad team has a tendency to close needinfo bugs after some
time...  Also they won't show in some default search queries..  Just
removing the patch keyword, or marking the patch as needs-work may be
better, but that's just my idea.

-- 
behdad
http://behdad.org/

Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little
 Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.
-- Benjamin Franklin, 1759



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Re: Supporting Gtk+ Maintenance

2007-03-20 Thread Federico Mena Quintero
El vie, 16-03-2007 a las 20:44 +0530, मयंक जैन (makuchaku) escribió:
  Here's a task for you to get started.  It will take you several days,
  but hopefully it will be fun :)
 
 Sure... onto it!

That's the spirit! :)

  Federico

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Re: Supporting Gtk+ Maintenance

2007-03-16 Thread मयंक जैन ( makuchaku)
On 3/16/07, Federico Mena Quintero [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 El jue, 15-03-2007 a las 14:20 +0530, मयंक जैन (makuchaku) escribió:

  I would be happy to volunteer towards maintainence of GTK+.

 Wow, thanks!

 Here's a task for you to get started.  It will take you several days,
 but hopefully it will be fun :)

Sure... onto it!

Regards,
Makuchaku
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Supporting Gtk+ Maintenance

2007-03-14 Thread Tim Janik

Hello Foundation Board.

The Gtk+ project is in dire lack of new maintainers, mostly to review
patches, so that bugs can be fixed and new features can be introduced.
We need suggestions for candidates, probably for particular sub-sections
of Gtk+. Ideally, these candidates would be employed to work on Gtk+.

To avoid any misunderstandings, the project is not in lack of more
patches or code contributions, what it lacks is the human resources
to handle the flow of incoming patches and bug reports, and do code
maintenance work.

A more in-depth description of this situation can be found here:
   http://mail.gnome.org/archives/gtk-devel-list/2006-December/msg00074.html

In response to that write up, various people have made suggestions to
improve the situation and asked for opportunities or ways to help.
Some of these suggestions involve the Gnome foundation board and Gnome
advisory board, which is why I'm writing you.

A lot of companies are involved in Gnome and Gtk+ at this point, and
probably can be expected to have a vivid self interest in our core
technologies to stay reliable and properly maintained. In order to help
to achieve this, this can be done:

* Companies (especially those on the advisory board) can submit names
   of developers (employees) who can be put on the task of Gtk+
   maintenance.
   Ideally, the developers should already have experience with Gtk+
   project contributions, and they should be team-oriented and
   communicative to be able to develop a good work relationship with
   the existing Gtk+ community.

* The Gtk+ project would like to see those people work full time if
   possible, but regular part time assistance can also help a lot.

* These positions must not be limited to work on constrained feature
   sets only. There are enough limited scope/feature bound contributions
   already. As a consequence, there is a strong need for more general
   involvement and maintenance work like cleanups, regression fixes,
   refactorings and similar things.

So for the foundation board, there are two things that can be done
to improve the current situation:

1) Please present the issue at hand (this email and the email linked
to above) to the advisory board members, to make sure the companies
involved are aware of the situation. And if possible, spread the
word to other involved parties or (non advisory) companies.

2) Please investigate if the hiring/sponsoring of a full time Gtk+
maintainer position by the Gnome foundation is also a possibility.

---
ciaoTJ
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Re: Supporting Gtk+ Maintenance

2007-03-14 Thread Jeff Waugh
quote who=Tim Janik

 So for the foundation board, there are two things that can be done
 to improve the current situation:
 
 1) Please present the issue at hand (this email and the email linked
to above) to the advisory board members, to make sure the companies
involved are aware of the situation. And if possible, spread the
word to other involved parties or (non advisory) companies.

Your timing is fantastic -- we're having an Advisory Board meeting tomorrow
morning. I will bring it up then. :-)

 2) Please investigate if the hiring/sponsoring of a full time Gtk+
maintainer position by the Gnome foundation is also a possibility.

Current and previous boards have been very cautious about the idea of hiring
developers. We'd prefer to hire people who can support the work of hackers.
That's not to say it's completely off the table, but there's more we can do
with contributing companies beforehand.

Just for the record, I'm taking this issue very seriously. It's one of the
reasons I brought up GTK+ collaboration with the GNOME Foundation (and the
other project mentioned during the GTK+ meeting at GUADEC).

Thanks,

- Jeff

-- 
Open CeBIT 2007: Sydney, Australia  http://www.opencebit.com.au/
 
   Blessed are the cracked, for they let in the light. - Spike Milligan
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Re : State of the Gtk+ Maintenance

2006-12-27 Thread Even Rouault
Hello,

The information you've provided is interesting, and it raises complementary 
questions :
- currently, how many people work for Gtk+ developpment and/or maintenance a 
significant part of their work time ? what is the current yearly amount of 
man-hours for Gtk+ ?
- by which companies are they employed / how are they financed for their 
work ?
- can you evaluate in terms of yearly man-hours the extra man work you are 
calling for ?

Thanks
Even
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