[Dng] Weekly developer status update (Was: Re: OT: Programming languages again.)

2015-02-14 Thread Jude Nelson
 The dev teams seems very quiet and isolated, which is okay - but it makes
them seem less approachable if you are on the list.

I think this is a good idea, even if only to keep me motivated :)  I'll
start.

** vdev **

It's been slow-going for me these past couple weeks since I've had to
devote more time to $DAYJOB than usual.  Hopefully that'll wind down in the
next couple of weeks so I can spend more time on this.

That said, I'm currently working on vdev issue #16 (daemon
infrastructure), and that'll be pushed sometime tonight.  This will entail
adding the usual daemon boilerplate code (interfacing with syslog, init
script, run-in-foreground vs run-in-background).  I'm also doing a bit of
refactoring to merge options-parsing with config-file parsing.

I'm discovering that the hard part to developing vdev is keeping it
compatible with udev.  By virtue of the fact that udev is over 10 years old
and sees wide-spread use, it handles a lot of corner cases that have to be
painstakingly re-implemented.

Fortunately, vdev's architecture is amenable to doing so in a piecemeal
fashion.  Once I make an alpha release, it will be possible to parcel this
work out technically-inclined individuals who encounter a regression
against udev, and can write a script that fixes it.  Documentation on how
to do this will be forthcoming, but I'm happy to say that it's much simpler
to get vdev to set up your hardware than udev :)

** dbus **

I've taken up maintenance for the dbus package.  It's currently at
1.8.16-1+devuan1 (the same version as Debian unstable), and includes
patches for all the latest CVEs.  It also has all of the commit history and
tags imported from Debian, so you should be able to check out and build any
prior version.

** How to Import a Package from Debian **

Jaromil and I worked out a (semi-)general way to import packages from
Debian's git.  Here are the steps taken for dbus (but they should work for
most packages).  This brief tutorial is meant to help future maintainers
get off the ground:

$ git clone g...@git.devuan.org:packages-base/dbus.git pkgdir  # or whatever
package
$ cd pkgdir
$ git remote add debian git://anonscm.debian.org/pkg-utopia/dbus.git   #
remote Debian git
$ git fetch debian
$ git checkout -b debian-upstream
$ git merge debian/master  # or whatever remote branch you want--see git
branch -r)

 merge conflicts; we usually want to keep HEAD and disregard
debian/master ...

$ git commit -a
$ git checkout master
$ git merge debian-upstream  # should cleanly fast-forward, since we
already merged into debian-upstream, which is the same as master at this
point)
$ git push
$ git tag $DEVUAN_TAGGED_VERSION
$ git push --tags

Regards,
Jude

On Sat, Feb 14, 2015 at 4:16 PM, T.J. Duchene t.j.duch...@gmail.com wrote:

 On Saturday, February 14, 2015 09:27:57 AM Didier Kryn wrote:
   No no , T.J. , I don't think your emails are a nuisance. I was
  rather thinking of mine, having expressed all sorts of frustrations on
  this list while the good guys are silently doing the job we are all
  waiting for with great hope. I was just thinking it was not very polite,
  and therefore I was just trying to moderate what I had said. I know
  others have been more pushy than me :-) .
 
   Didier
 
 I never felt your expressing your frustrations was a problem. In fact, I
 appreciate them, as there are few people outside of programmers and
 hobbyists
 who understand them.  Commiseration is not bad thing.

 I've already considered you to be very civil and that is much appreciated.

 As for doing work on Devuan, I'd like to help, but I honestly do not have a
 sense of where to begin.  The dev teams seems very quiet and isolated,
 which
 is okay - but it makes them seem less approachable if you are on the
 list.   I
 would very much appreciate it if the core team posted a weekly list of
 things
 that need doing, as well as an email address to someone to whom we can
 coordinate efforts so that we do not swamp the list.

 I can understand if they don't want too many members in the core team.  It
 leads to QA problems.  All I would like to do is help out, and then submit
 the
 work for quality assessment.  After that, it is up to the core team.


 T.J.








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[Dng] Weekly developer status update

2015-02-14 Thread T.J. Duchene

 I think this is a good idea, even if only to keep me motivated   I'll
 start.

Thanks for the update, Jude. It is appreciated.

I'll state from the outset this is entirely a suggestion.  I think it may help 
get outsiders involved, but the concepts are entirely subjective. 


What I was really looking for though something like this:

1.  The dev team creates a list of core packages that need to be in place for 
Devuan to boot.  Core packages need not include anything related to X at this 
point, just what is needed to get to a terminal.

2.  The dev team then posts a list of things needed to create an acceptable 
Devuan build environment. 

3. Dev team posts a list of packages that need work.

4.  People on the list express interest in taking them on.

5.  Once finished they send them back to the dev team for assessment.  If they 
decide things are good, then the package can be included in Devuan, otherwise 
not.  If you do enough good work, then perhaps you might be invited as a core 
member someday.

6.  Repeat step one, eventually with X, etc

The idea that I am trying to endorse here is to extend communication to the 
wider community to speed work, without expanding the core dev team beyond 
manageable proportions.

It might sound a bit like the core dev team is a bit of a dictatorship, but 
personally I'd rather have a meritocracy rather than a democracy at this 
point.  Devuan needs people willing to actually do the needed work.


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