Re: [gentoo-dev] Attracting developers (Re: Packages up for grabs...)
On Saturday 05 January 2013 15:29:05 Rich Freeman wrote: On Sat, Jan 5, 2013 at 1:55 PM, Alec Warner anta...@gentoo.org wrote: On Sat, Jan 5, 2013 at 9:03 AM, Andreas K. Huettel dilfri...@gentoo.org wrote: Even if you're not a business you should care about maintainable solutions. I'm sure at the time it was created (12+ years ago) the website looked pretty maintainable :) Hence the reason we should strongly consider a mainstream CMS. I don't have a problem with somebody wanting to spend a lot of time making something fancy for us - we're all volunteers. The problem is that the satisfaction of having built something new and shiny tends to wear off, and then it ends up having to be maintained by people who could care less how fancy the engine behind it is. Rich This, The problem is that the satisfaction of having built something new and shiny tends to wear off, and then it ends up having to be maintained by people who could care less how fancy the engine behind it is. Aaron signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part.
Re: [gentoo-dev] Attracting developers (Re: Packages up for grabs...)
On 01/05/2013 12:47 AM, Donnie Berkholz wrote: Some early work on it using Bootstrap: http://a3li.li/~alex/g.o/ I really like this. The (admittedly kind-of ugly) logo and the flying saucer thing are incorporated tastefully and it makes a big difference. The zebra tables, and especially the security updates, look great. The heading fonts are well-chosen. The amount of whitespace is just right. If I had one criticism, it would be that the leading (i.e. line-height) in the main content should be proportional to the length of the line (ideally, the column width would also be capped between e.g. 40-50em). But that's a minor issue; the entire look is a massive improvement.
Re: [gentoo-dev] Attracting developers (Re: Packages up for grabs...)
On 1/4/13 9:47 PM, Donnie Berkholz wrote: I did much of the design work nearly 2 years ago: http://dev.gentoo.org/~dberkholz/gentoo_website/gentoo_landing_black.png http://dev.gentoo.org/~dberkholz/gentoo_website/gentoo_landing_install.png http://dev.gentoo.org/~dberkholz/gentoo_website/gentoo_landing_handbook.png http://dev.gentoo.org/~dberkholz/gentoo_website/gentoo_landing_handbook2.png Some early work on it using Bootstrap: http://a3li.li/~alex/g.o/ This looks good to me! That said, why the hell are we wasting time implementing our own website backend when we should be using a CMS? We're here to make a distro, not a website framework. No reason we should care, day to day, about anything but frontend theming and content. +1 Paweł signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: [gentoo-dev] Attracting developers (Re: Packages up for grabs...)
On 2013.01.05 05:47, Donnie Berkholz wrote: On 10:43 Mon 17 Dec , Markos Chandras wrote: On 16 December 2012 18:53, Andreas K. Huettel dilfri...@gentoo.org wrote: How to do this, however, and what software to target should probably be decided by people who know more than me... and in the end it all boils down to who has the time and motivation. Outsource it to someone who has the knowledge and interest in doing this. The foundation has the funds to support it, and none of us actually have the time to invest in a complete webpage redesign. I did much of the design work nearly 2 years ago: http://dev.gentoo.org/~dberkholz/gentoo_website/ gentoo_landing_black.png http://dev.gentoo.org/~dberkholz/gentoo_website/ gentoo_landing_install.png http://dev.gentoo.org/~dberkholz/gentoo_website/ gentoo_landing_handbook.png http://dev.gentoo.org/~dberkholz/gentoo_website/ gentoo_landing_handbook2.png Some early work on it using Bootstrap: http://a3li.li/~alex/g.o/ That said, why the hell are we wasting time implementing our own website backend when we should be using a CMS? We're here to make a distro, not a website framework. No reason we should care, day to day, about anything but frontend theming and content. -- Thanks, Donnie Donnie Berkholz Council Member / Sr. Developer, Gentoo Linux http://dberkholz.com Analyst, RedMonk http://redmonk.com/dberkholz/ Donnie. We make our own website framework for the same reason that everything else happens in Gentoo. Someone is interested in doing it. I agree its not 'core business' but Gentoo isn't a business. -- Regards, Roy Bamford (Neddyseagoon) a member of elections gentoo-ops forum-mods trustees pgpdIQacGgwHH.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-dev] Attracting developers (Re: Packages up for grabs...)
Am Samstag, 5. Januar 2013, 16:46:07 schrieb Roy Bamford: That said, why the hell are we wasting time implementing our own website backend when we should be using a CMS? We're here to make a distro, not a website framework. No reason we should care, day to day, about anything but frontend theming and content. Donnie. We make our own website framework for the same reason that everything else happens in Gentoo. Someone is interested in doing it. I agree its not 'core business' but Gentoo isn't a business. Even if you're not a business you should care about maintainable solutions. -- Andreas K. Huettel Gentoo Linux developer dilfri...@gentoo.org http://www.akhuettel.de/ signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part.
Re: [gentoo-dev] Attracting developers (Re: Packages up for grabs...)
On Sat, Jan 5, 2013 at 9:03 AM, Andreas K. Huettel dilfri...@gentoo.org wrote: Am Samstag, 5. Januar 2013, 16:46:07 schrieb Roy Bamford: That said, why the hell are we wasting time implementing our own website backend when we should be using a CMS? We're here to make a distro, not a website framework. No reason we should care, day to day, about anything but frontend theming and content. Donnie. We make our own website framework for the same reason that everything else happens in Gentoo. Someone is interested in doing it. I agree its not 'core business' but Gentoo isn't a business. Even if you're not a business you should care about maintainable solutions. I'm sure at the time it was created (12+ years ago) the website looked pretty maintainable :) -A -- Andreas K. Huettel Gentoo Linux developer dilfri...@gentoo.org http://www.akhuettel.de/
Re: [gentoo-dev] Attracting developers (Re: Packages up for grabs...)
On Sat, Jan 5, 2013 at 1:55 PM, Alec Warner anta...@gentoo.org wrote: On Sat, Jan 5, 2013 at 9:03 AM, Andreas K. Huettel dilfri...@gentoo.org wrote: Even if you're not a business you should care about maintainable solutions. I'm sure at the time it was created (12+ years ago) the website looked pretty maintainable :) Hence the reason we should strongly consider a mainstream CMS. I don't have a problem with somebody wanting to spend a lot of time making something fancy for us - we're all volunteers. The problem is that the satisfaction of having built something new and shiny tends to wear off, and then it ends up having to be maintained by people who could care less how fancy the engine behind it is. Rich
Re: [gentoo-dev] Attracting developers (Re: Packages up for grabs...)
On 18:03 Sat 05 Jan , Andreas K. Huettel wrote: Am Samstag, 5. Januar 2013, 16:46:07 schrieb Roy Bamford: I agree its not 'core business' but Gentoo isn't a business. Even if you're not a business you should care about maintainable solutions. More importantly, even if you aren't a business (although we are, technically, albeit a not-for-profit one), you should still have a mission that you're focused on accomplishing. Otherwise you can justify anything in the context of Gentoo, when in reality we need to limit our scope to increase our impact. I actually suspect this is a byproduct of Gentoo being many contributors' first OSS development experiences. They're nervous to branch out on their own w/ e.g. a GitHub repo so they initiate *everything* under the Gentoo umbrella. I would argue that defining a clear vision and audience for Gentoo would significantly increase our ability to get useful things done. -- Thanks, Donnie Donnie Berkholz Council Member / Sr. Developer, Gentoo Linux http://dberkholz.com Analyst, RedMonk http://redmonk.com/dberkholz/ pgpzBhWAtbiqb.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-dev] Attracting developers (Re: Packages up for grabs...)
On 10:43 Mon 17 Dec , Markos Chandras wrote: On 16 December 2012 18:53, Andreas K. Huettel dilfri...@gentoo.org wrote: How to do this, however, and what software to target should probably be decided by people who know more than me... and in the end it all boils down to who has the time and motivation. Outsource it to someone who has the knowledge and interest in doing this. The foundation has the funds to support it, and none of us actually have the time to invest in a complete webpage redesign. I did much of the design work nearly 2 years ago: http://dev.gentoo.org/~dberkholz/gentoo_website/gentoo_landing_black.png http://dev.gentoo.org/~dberkholz/gentoo_website/gentoo_landing_install.png http://dev.gentoo.org/~dberkholz/gentoo_website/gentoo_landing_handbook.png http://dev.gentoo.org/~dberkholz/gentoo_website/gentoo_landing_handbook2.png Some early work on it using Bootstrap: http://a3li.li/~alex/g.o/ That said, why the hell are we wasting time implementing our own website backend when we should be using a CMS? We're here to make a distro, not a website framework. No reason we should care, day to day, about anything but frontend theming and content. -- Thanks, Donnie Donnie Berkholz Council Member / Sr. Developer, Gentoo Linux http://dberkholz.com Analyst, RedMonk http://redmonk.com/dberkholz/ pgpSKkhPZZeQ4.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-dev] Attracting developers (Re: Packages up for grabs...)
On 30 December 2012 00:13, Brian Dolbec dol...@gentoo.org wrote: On Sat, 2012-12-29 at 16:42 +0800, Ben de Groot wrote: On 27 December 2012 00:39, Kent Fredric kentfred...@gmail.com wrote: Can we short cut the whole quiz process and have some Inbound repository until we're full git, which people can fork/commit/pull and trusted people can review submitted branches and apply them to CVS? This is why I started https://github.com/yngwin/proxy-maint/ Feel free to send pull requests my way. I have been very busy lately with work, so I am a bit behind on my Gentoo stuff, but I should be back in full swing soon. Not to sidetrack the topic farther, but isn't this best done in our github/gentoo account. It is one of the main reasons we have it, to easily accept pull requests from users. It would also make it easier for more devs to participate in a group proxy-maint repo. I started this repo as a private initiative to deal with some of my proxy maintainers. If other devs find it useful, I'm happy to move it to the Gentoo organization account on github. Another reason I didn't do that so far, is that I was told infra is looking into setting up an integral solution to mirror our official overlays on github. It's been a while though, so it would be nice to hear some news on that. I find the github web interface a lot more convenient that the one we have on git.overlays.gentoo.org, so I'm rather anxious for us to start using github more. -- Cheers, Ben | yngwin Gentoo developer Gentoo Qt project lead, Gentoo Wiki admin
Re: [gentoo-dev] Attracting developers (Re: Packages up for grabs...)
On Monday 31 of December 2012 16:46:53 Ben de Groot wrote: On 30 December 2012 00:13, Brian Dolbec dol...@gentoo.org wrote: On Sat, 2012-12-29 at 16:42 +0800, Ben de Groot wrote: On 27 December 2012 00:39, Kent Fredric kentfred...@gmail.com wrote: Can we short cut the whole quiz process and have some Inbound repository until we're full git, which people can fork/commit/pull and trusted people can review submitted branches and apply them to CVS? This is why I started https://github.com/yngwin/proxy-maint/ Feel free to send pull requests my way. I have been very busy lately with work, so I am a bit behind on my Gentoo stuff, but I should be back in full swing soon. Not to sidetrack the topic farther, but isn't this best done in our github/gentoo account. It is one of the main reasons we have it, to easily accept pull requests from users. It would also make it easier for more devs to participate in a group proxy-maint repo. I started this repo as a private initiative to deal with some of my proxy maintainers. If other devs find it useful, I'm happy to move it to the Gentoo organization account on github. Another reason I didn't do that so far, is that I was told infra is looking into setting up an integral solution to mirror our official overlays on github. It's been a while though, so it would be nice to hear some news on that. I find the github web interface a lot more convenient that the one we have on git.overlays.gentoo.org, so I'm rather anxious for us to start using github more. infra is not working on such thing. Feel free to move the repo to the gentoo organization. Theo signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part.
Re: [gentoo-dev] Attracting developers (Re: Packages up for grabs...)
On 27 December 2012 00:39, Kent Fredric kentfred...@gmail.com wrote: Can we short cut the whole quiz process and have some Inbound repository until we're full git, which people can fork/commit/pull and trusted people can review submitted branches and apply them to CVS? This is why I started https://github.com/yngwin/proxy-maint/ Feel free to send pull requests my way. I have been very busy lately with work, so I am a bit behind on my Gentoo stuff, but I should be back in full swing soon. -- Cheers, Ben | yngwin Gentoo developer Gentoo Qt project lead, Gentoo Wiki admin
Re: [gentoo-dev] Attracting developers (Re: Packages up for grabs...)
On Sat, 2012-12-29 at 16:42 +0800, Ben de Groot wrote: On 27 December 2012 00:39, Kent Fredric kentfred...@gmail.com wrote: Can we short cut the whole quiz process and have some Inbound repository until we're full git, which people can fork/commit/pull and trusted people can review submitted branches and apply them to CVS? This is why I started https://github.com/yngwin/proxy-maint/ Feel free to send pull requests my way. I have been very busy lately with work, so I am a bit behind on my Gentoo stuff, but I should be back in full swing soon. Not to sidetrack the topic farther, but isn't this best done in our github/gentoo account. It is one of the main reasons we have it, to easily accept pull requests from users. It would also make it easier for more devs to participate in a group proxy-maint repo. -- Brian Dolbec dol...@gentoo.org signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: [gentoo-dev] Attracting developers (Re: Packages up for grabs...)
On Sat, Dec 29, 2012 at 11:13 AM, Brian Dolbec dol...@gentoo.org wrote: Not to sidetrack the topic farther, but isn't this best done in our github/gentoo account. It is one of the main reasons we have it, to easily accept pull requests from users. It would also make it easier for more devs to participate in a group proxy-maint repo. Very little Gentoo-related work on Github is actually done under the Gentoo org. I'm not really sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing. We haven't really figured out what we want to do with that space. I suspect some of it is that many devs just want to do their thing, and github is a place where you can do whatever you want with your overlay/etc and nobody else is going to tell you that you're doing it wrong. Again, not sure if it is a good thing or a bad thing. Rich
Re: [gentoo-dev] Attracting developers (Re: Packages up for grabs...)
On Sat, Dec 29, 2012 at 11:13 AM, Brian Dolbec dol...@gentoo.org wrote: On Sat, 2012-12-29 at 16:42 +0800, Ben de Groot wrote: On 27 December 2012 00:39, Kent Fredric kentfred...@gmail.com wrote: Can we short cut the whole quiz process and have some Inbound repository until we're full git, which people can fork/commit/pull and trusted people can review submitted branches and apply them to CVS? This is why I started https://github.com/yngwin/proxy-maint/ Feel free to send pull requests my way. I have been very busy lately with work, so I am a bit behind on my Gentoo stuff, but I should be back in full swing soon. Not to sidetrack the topic farther, but isn't this best done in our github/gentoo account. It is one of the main reasons we have it, to easily accept pull requests from users. It would also make it easier for more devs to participate in a group proxy-maint repo. Certainly a sidetrack: I would like to point out that Github now supports Organizations as a semantic concept. I *highly* recommend using something like that over using an 'individual' account as an organization. I've been using Github Organizations in a private context, and it's been working extremely well. -- :wq
Gentoo and Github (Re: [gentoo-dev] Attracting developers (Re: Packages up for grabs...) )
On Sat, Dec 29, 2012 at 11:32 AM, Michael Mol mike...@gmail.com wrote: On Sat, Dec 29, 2012 at 11:13 AM, Brian Dolbec dol...@gentoo.org wrote: On Sat, 2012-12-29 at 16:42 +0800, Ben de Groot wrote: On 27 December 2012 00:39, Kent Fredric kentfred...@gmail.com wrote: Can we short cut the whole quiz process and have some Inbound repository until we're full git, which people can fork/commit/pull and trusted people can review submitted branches and apply them to CVS? This is why I started https://github.com/yngwin/proxy-maint/ Feel free to send pull requests my way. I have been very busy lately with work, so I am a bit behind on my Gentoo stuff, but I should be back in full swing soon. Not to sidetrack the topic farther, but isn't this best done in our github/gentoo account. It is one of the main reasons we have it, to easily accept pull requests from users. It would also make it easier for more devs to participate in a group proxy-maint repo. Certainly a sidetrack: I would like to point out that Github now supports Organizations as a semantic concept. I *highly* recommend using something like that over using an 'individual' account as an organization. I've been using Github Organizations in a private context, and it's been working extremely well. Ugh. Apologies. I meant to change the subject line, spent a couple minutes figuring out how to do it in GMail...and then forgot. :-| Fixing... -- :wq
Re: Gentoo and Github (Re: [gentoo-dev] Attracting developers (Re: Packages up for grabs...) )
We are. Diego Elio Pettenò — Flameeyes flamee...@flameeyes.eu — http://blog.flameeyes.eu/ On Sat, Dec 29, 2012 at 5:34 PM, Michael Mol mike...@gmail.com wrote: On Sat, Dec 29, 2012 at 11:32 AM, Michael Mol mike...@gmail.com wrote: On Sat, Dec 29, 2012 at 11:13 AM, Brian Dolbec dol...@gentoo.org wrote: On Sat, 2012-12-29 at 16:42 +0800, Ben de Groot wrote: On 27 December 2012 00:39, Kent Fredric kentfred...@gmail.com wrote: Can we short cut the whole quiz process and have some Inbound repository until we're full git, which people can fork/commit/pull and trusted people can review submitted branches and apply them to CVS? This is why I started https://github.com/yngwin/proxy-maint/ Feel free to send pull requests my way. I have been very busy lately with work, so I am a bit behind on my Gentoo stuff, but I should be back in full swing soon. Not to sidetrack the topic farther, but isn't this best done in our github/gentoo account. It is one of the main reasons we have it, to easily accept pull requests from users. It would also make it easier for more devs to participate in a group proxy-maint repo. Certainly a sidetrack: I would like to point out that Github now supports Organizations as a semantic concept. I *highly* recommend using something like that over using an 'individual' account as an organization. I've been using Github Organizations in a private context, and it's been working extremely well. Ugh. Apologies. I meant to change the subject line, spent a couple minutes figuring out how to do it in GMail...and then forgot. :-| Fixing... -- :wq
Re: [gentoo-dev] Attracting developers (Re: Packages up for grabs...)
On Saturday 29 of December 2012 11:32:45 Michael Mol wrote: Certainly a sidetrack: I would like to point out that Github now supports Organizations as a semantic concept. I *highly* recommend using something like that over using an 'individual' account as an organization. I've been using Github Organizations in a private context, and it's been working extremely well. It is an organization, not a normal account. Theo signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part.
Re: [gentoo-dev] Attracting developers (Re: Packages up for grabs...)
On 12/26/2012 05:39 PM, Kent Fredric wrote: I know, it should be easy, and I'm probably making excuses, but it boils down to Well, it boils down to you needing an excuse ;) 1. People in Gentoo have asked me to/encouraged me to do the quizzes 2. I've tried several times 3. Still not there. 4. This problem is not so prevalent in the dozens of other projects I've contributed to. If you tried several times you should have the notes from then, after a few tries I expect you to reach full coverage of all questions at some point ... As soon as Git migration is done, then I can just 1. Fork 2. Hack 3. Somebody can watch/review/cherry-pick commits I make if they like them, if not, I'm not worried. But the git part aside, back to the quiz. Right now you can: 1) publish overlay 2) profit I don't see how this is in any way related to the technology used - as a maintainer I'd still have to review the changes, and the difference between some git magic and some shell magic eludes me. The more difficult part imo is finding someone to review, provide feedback etc. - once you have that figured out the rest pretty much happens by itself
Re: [gentoo-dev] Attracting developers (Re: Packages up for grabs...)
On Thu, Dec 27, 2012 at 1:30 AM, Kent Fredric kentfred...@gmail.com wrote: There's no reason we /can't/ have a comparable process for CVS to eliminate needless slopping of files around in pastebins/emails, both of which are time consuming and not designed for doing exactly that. ... (lots of descriptions of fancy tools to make cvs more bearable) If people are looking to improve Gentoo's tools it would be far more productive for them to help out with the git migration. Can I stop somebody from making gerrit-for-cvs? No. I won't even try - Gentoo is about choice. However, the fact is that git is the future, and we're probably one of the only serious FOSS projects around still using cvs (largely because it doesn't hamper us as much as it hampers everybody else). We're really not that far from having a working git implementation. Rich
Re: [gentoo-dev] Attracting developers (Re: Packages up for grabs...)
On 19/12/2012 10:03 p.m., Michał Górny wrote: Doesn't this prove that the recruitment process fails to work? If I were to throw random ideas, I'd think about letting new recruits did all commits through a proxy (mentor?). Of course, it all would be easier if we used git. I know this side question of git migration is one we want to avoid discussing, I know its in progress. But I am literally waiting for it to happen, because for whatever reason, the present barriers to contribution are too high for me without it. I can't put an exact finger on it, but devs seem to think the quiz methodology is easy, but it ( oh, and CVS ) are a high barrier to entry for me. I don't have the time/motivation/focus required to commit to even completing the quizzes, and I don't have the time/motivation/focus really required to be a full dev, and I don't even want to be a Full dev really. But I basically have found every time I've done the quiz, its eventually boiled down to a cycle of 1. Read quiz 2. Find it hard to find documentation on 3. Search for 4. Get lost 5. Find the resulting information I eventually find is vague and confusing with regard to the question. 6. Eventually get distracted and do something other than the rest of the quiz. I know, it should be easy, and I'm probably making excuses, but it boils down to 1. People in Gentoo have asked me to/encouraged me to do the quizzes 2. I've tried several times 3. Still not there. 4. This problem is not so prevalent in the dozens of other projects I've contributed to. As soon as Git migration is done, then I can just 1. Fork 2. Hack 3. Somebody can watch/review/cherry-pick commits I make if they like them, if not, I'm not worried. But the git part aside, back to the quiz. Surely, I'm not the /only/ person to get roadblocked by the quiz. The only thing really keeping me around as a half-assed dev is the fact we have overlays and the fact that the overlays are git based, and I get /some/ notion of contributions being of value there. Can we short cut the whole quiz process and have some Inbound repository until we're full git, which people can fork/commit/pull and trusted people can review submitted branches and apply them to CVS? Because I feel its quite possible partly that CVS is due to blame ( due to requiring of trusted commit, which requires the questions ) that there is difficulty getting devs, and the longer we're stuck with it, the more it will be a problem. It could actually be just the Proxy Maintainer workflow is not clear enough, or simple enough, and that we need more push towards a more heavy proxy-maintainer based system ( I don't know, I'm ignorant to too much of proxy-maintainer-ship stuff, to discern /why/ that is might be difficult, but I'd imagine my ignorance is part of the problem )
Re: [gentoo-dev] Attracting developers (Re: Packages up for grabs...)
On Thu, 27 Dec 2012 05:39:00 +1300
Kent Fredric kentfred...@gmail.com wrote:
On 19/12/2012 10:03 p.m., Michał Górny wrote:
If I were to throw random ideas, I'd think about letting new
recruits did all commits through a proxy (mentor?). Of course, it
all would be easier if we used git.
For once someone suggests a single good case where git beats CVS for
portage tree changes: easily checking suggested changes ...
I know this side question of git migration is one we want to avoid
discussing, I know its in progress.
But I am literally waiting for it to happen, because for whatever
reason, the present barriers to contribution are too high for me
without it.
... and yet someone will always turn up, ignore the context, and write
another rant about git.
I can't put an exact finger on it, but devs seem to think the quiz
methodology is easy, but it ( oh, and CVS ) are a high barrier to
entry for me.
For tree commits, we don't use complex CVS features at all. It isn't and
shouldn't be used as a development repository, so you need to know about
`cvs {add,commit,remove}', mainly. Most of the `cvs commit' instances
are normally handled by repoman.
I don't have the time/motivation/focus required to commit to even
completing the quizzes, and I don't have the time/motivation/focus
really required to be a full dev, and I don't even want to be a
Full dev really.
But I basically have found every time I've done the quiz, its
eventually boiled down to a cycle of
1. Read quiz
2. Find it hard to find documentation on
3. Search for
4. Get lost
5. Find the resulting information I eventually find is vague and
confusing with regard to the question.
6. Eventually get distracted and do something other than the rest of
the quiz.
[More of the same...]
What you want to do is contact your mentor - that is the person who
should be able to point out where to find the actual answer or just
tell you what the answer is - the point of the quizes is to properly
teach you how things work, not how to find out how things work.
Can we short cut the whole quiz process and have some Inbound
repository until we're full git, which people can fork/commit/pull
and trusted people can review submitted branches and apply them to
CVS?
You can mail or pastebin someone a diff right now or attach it to a bug
report. If every recruit/mentor team worked that way right now, we
would already catch a lot more problems much earlier.
Because I feel its quite possible partly that CVS is due to blame
( due to requiring of trusted commit, which requires the questions )
that there is difficulty getting devs, and the longer we're stuck
with it, the more it will be a problem.
A shiny new workflow doesn't magically make Gentoo development easier.
The hard bits aren't usually related to interactive repo access methods.
We can't get rid of the quizes just because we all now use $shiny.
It could actually be just the Proxy Maintainer workflow is not clear
enough, or simple enough, and that we need more push towards a more
heavy proxy-maintainer based system ( I don't know, I'm ignorant to
too much of proxy-maintainer-ship stuff, to discern /why/ that is
might be difficult, but I'd imagine my ignorance is part of the
problem )
Proxy commits should work exactly like recruit/mentor commits: you
review patches and give the nod and then the commits get done. This
workflow is only slightly less convenient with CVS than with git.
jer
---
I could be a brilliant programmer if someone wrote the perfect IDE for
me.
Re: [gentoo-dev] Attracting developers (Re: Packages up for grabs...)
Jeroen Roovers wrote: For once someone suggests a single good case where git beats CVS for portage tree changes: easily checking suggested changes ... Did you look at Gerrit one of the many times I mentioned it already? That is what it is for, and it is pretty great. A shiny new workflow doesn't magically make Gentoo development easier. Actually it does. It doesn't make hard things easy, but it does make things which are currently hard but which *should* actually be easy indeed be easy. Such as contributing commits for tested bumps, and tested bugfixes. Even if you might not think so, there is quite significant overhead for patches which sit in bugzilla compared to a Gerrit in front of a git repo. You really need to try it, and really want to learn Gerrit, to discover just how well it works. End result: Contributors can work independently and then send their work in with *zero* overhead. Do not underestimate the importance of this. Developers with portage tree write access review commits and can apply them to portage, or discard them, with a single click or with a single SSH command. The hard bits aren't usually related to interactive repo access methods. It was argued that the hard bits are only learned by mentoring. I think this makes sense, and I think it has nothing whatsoever to do with commit workflow. There are PLENTY of TRIVIAL NO-BRAINER contributions which are NOT GETTING INTO PORTAGE. Let's not worry about optimizing the really difficult problems until all the really simple problems have all been solved. We can't get rid of the quizes just because we all now use $shiny. Actually we can. Proxy commits should work exactly like recruit/mentor commits: you review patches and give the nod and then the commits get done. This workflow is only slightly less convenient with CVS than with git. I really recommend spending some time on learning Gerrit if you haven't used it already. //Peter
Re: [gentoo-dev] Attracting developers (Re: Packages up for grabs...)
On 27 December 2012 13:32, Jeroen Roovers j...@gentoo.org wrote: What you want to do is contact your mentor - that is the person who should be able to point out where to find the actual answer or just tell you what the answer is - the point of the quizes is to properly teach you how things work, not how to find out how things work. This poses a logistics problem Imo, because it requires time-bound dedication from a mentor, and it is an incredibly synchronous sort of behaviour. Its good that a mentor can do this, but IMO, needing to contact a gentoo dev to ask a question that could be easily answered by clearer documentation, suggests that there is room for improvement in the documentation. ( Exactly how to improve documentation to be more accessible is of course a hugely challenging issue ) You can mail or pastebin someone a diff right now or attach it to a bug report. If every recruit/mentor team worked that way right now, we would already catch a lot more problems much earlier. Mail a bug report, and anything that results in scm + diff - email - scm + diff offers a huge problem in terms of data being faithfully transported to me. It may sound trivial, but if you're working on the target box over an SSH connection, getting the patch in an email is not very fun. pick one of ( diff + xclip + paste , diff + sftp + attach , diff + samba + attach ), and the other end having to do ( download attachment / copy-paste-inline-diff ) - ( get the diff in a file on a machine somehow from email, and compare / apply to CVS ) ^^^ is a very time consuming process filled with potential places for things to go wrong , and this time consuming cost being associated with *every* patch submission will greatly slow contribution. I'm not saying just use git, though, of course, this is where git shines, because once you have a repository URI, receiving contributions from that repository becomes incredibly simple. There's no reason we /can't/ have a comparable process for CVS to eliminate needless slopping of files around in pastebins/emails, both of which are time consuming and not designed for doing exactly that. ie: instead of just use a pastebin, it might help to have a formalised/approved pastebin tool that provides CVS diffs in a usable form ( ie: records CVS commit the diff is based upon, generates diffs with a consistent root point, generates diffs in a consistent format instead of relying on the user to remember the right flags to diff ), and then uploads those diffs to either an existing pastebin, or a gentoo controlled one, and has a way of tracking patches for application to ::gentoo so that people can review/reject submissions and submitters can get automated feedback about submissions. ie: repoman-submit -m Update Foo to version x.y.z, etc ## Your changes have been submitted as @gentoo/af6347 ... repoman-review * @gentoo/af6347 - Update Foo to version x.y.z * @gentoo/afbeef - Update Bar to version x.y.z EDITOR=vim repoman-review --show @gentoo/af6347 repoman-review --reject @gentoo/af6347 -m You have x problem y with blah EDITOR=vim repoman-review --show @gentoo/afbeef repoman-review --accept @gentoo/afbeef ## @gentoo/afbeef commited to CVS Yes. This is an oversimplified example. But I hope you see where I'm going with it. The essential points are 1. Doesn't need manual interaction with EMail at any stage 2. Doesn't need manual interaction with a pastebin at any stage 3. Connectedness to bugzilla/email are entirely optional, and emails/bugs should/could refer to submissions in the queue. And we don't *have* to use Git to get this sort of workflow benefits. A shiny new workflow doesn't magically make Gentoo development easier. The hard bits aren't usually related to interactive repo access methods. We can't get rid of the quizes just because we all now use $shiny. It really does, it allows people to much more efficiently submit changes to the tree that you wouldn't trust them to Just do themselves, ( because they haven't done the quizzes ), but you would trust an approved dev to review and commit. Proxy commits should work exactly like recruit/mentor commits: you review patches and give the nod and then the commits get done. This workflow is only slightly less convenient with CVS than with git. Agreed, but there's no reason we /can't/ make the workflow more convenient, and optimising the proxy/recruit contribution workflow would not be something I'd consider bad. It just absolves us from having to do the repetitive mundane parts of the contribution process so we can spend more time focusing on the contribution itself.
Re: [gentoo-dev] Attracting developers (Re: Packages up for grabs...)
On Wed, 19 Dec 2012 07:56:56 +0100 Jeroen Roovers j...@gentoo.org wrote: On Mon, 17 Dec 2012 10:40:06 +0100 Michał Górny mgo...@gentoo.org wrote: People aren't bothering. It's not because of any fundamental problem -- it's because the process is obscure and potentially a waste of time. I agree with that. The process takes a lot of time for a minor benefit, and most of it doesn't prove really helpful. I think the process should mostly prove that someone is able to find and read docs, write ebuilds and understand the major concepts. Please show me some numbers that prove your point about the recruitment process having little benefit. Opinions don't come with numbers. Honestly, I see no reason to ask recruits for a lot of things we do right now. There's no point in telling them to summarize a large piece of the docs. From my personal experience, there is a lot of things which you learn and then forget because you don't need them for a long time. I could go all cynical here and give a few examples of how a couple of people recently got through and actually managed to mess up a few very basic things you would never contemplate quizzing them about. But I would much rather see to it that those few bits get fixed, rather than the even greater mess we would be in if everybody with the right mindset got commit privileges. Since nobody's perfect, we already have enough work to do, thank you. Doesn't this prove that the recruitment process fails to work? If I were to throw random ideas, I'd think about letting new recruits did all commits through a proxy (mentor?). Of course, it all would be easier if we used git. -- Best regards, Michał Górny signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-dev] Attracting developers (Re: Packages up for grabs...)
On 19 December 2012 09:03, Michał Górny mgo...@gentoo.org wrote: Of course, it all would be easier if we used git. Please lets not hijack yet another thread with the git migration. -- Regards, Markos Chandras / Gentoo Linux Developer / Key ID: B4AFF2C2
Re: [gentoo-dev] Attracting developers (Re: Packages up for grabs...)
On Mon, 17 Dec 2012 10:40:06 +0100 Michał Górny mgo...@gentoo.org wrote: People aren't bothering. It's not because of any fundamental problem -- it's because the process is obscure and potentially a waste of time. I agree with that. The process takes a lot of time for a minor benefit, and most of it doesn't prove really helpful. I think the process should mostly prove that someone is able to find and read docs, write ebuilds and understand the major concepts. Please show me some numbers that prove your point about the recruitment process having little benefit. Honestly, I see no reason to ask recruits for a lot of things we do right now. There's no point in telling them to summarize a large piece of the docs. From my personal experience, there is a lot of things which you learn and then forget because you don't need them for a long time. I could go all cynical here and give a few examples of how a couple of people recently got through and actually managed to mess up a few very basic things you would never contemplate quizzing them about. But I would much rather see to it that those few bits get fixed, rather than the even greater mess we would be in if everybody with the right mindset got commit privileges. Since nobody's perfect, we already have enough work to do, thank you. jer
Re: [gentoo-dev] Attracting developers (Re: Packages up for grabs...)
On 17 December 2012 00:10, Michael Orlitzky mich...@orlitzky.com wrote: On 12/16/12 14:04, Markos Chandras wrote: On 16 December 2012 16:57, Michael Orlitzky mich...@orlitzky.com wrote: Inspired by the number of packages being unmaintained -- why not use some of that bug bounty money to fix up the recruitment documentation Recruitment documentatiob? What does that mean? People still think of Gentoo as a ricer distro that's broken all the time, when in reality, it's one of the most stable. Well that's not entirely true but that's a different issue The first part is definitely true. The stable part is also true in my experience, all things considered. For an example, take the last what's your favorite distro post on Reddit (not exactly a representative sample, I know): http://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/14tpnt/of_all_the_distros_youve_ever_used_what_do_you/ Top rated comment: Tie between Arch and Gentoo. These are my messing around distros. Fun to install and tweak on older machines, but I don't know enough about them to use them full time. Plus, Gentoo breaks. A lot. Arch breaks much more often than Debian for me but much less than Gentoo. Further down: Gentoo is not stable. Stop saying that. My experience mirrors Michael Mol's. Perception is bad. Reality not so much. I don't care much about what a website may say or not. Truth is Gentoo is a rolling release so you can't expect much when it comes to stability. But we are trying our best though Note quite. The activity of a distro is measure but the # of devs, packages in tree, activity on bugzilla and mailing lists etc. The design of a website does not really say much. Many foss projects still have static html pages. This does not mean they are dead. The actual activity, yes. The perceived activity... eh. And that's what gets you new users and developers. The perceived activity is certainly not measured by the website. The numbers of fixed bugs, version bumps etc is a good indication to measure the activity of such projects. Honestly, I rarely visit the website of the projects I use. I only read the RSS just to see if something new is happening. Parts of this docs are outdated but this does not matter. Get involved, fix bugs, help people and someone will ask you to join. Or look for a mentor. If your recruitment process is fix bugs for years and maybe someone will notice you, maybe not, then nobody is going to bother. There needs to be a clear, step-by-step process. This guy posted a graph the other day: http://hwoarang.silverarrow.org/wp-content/uploads/recruitment_stats.png People aren't bothering. It's not because of any fundamental problem -- it's because the process is obscure and potentially a waste of time. I posted that. The reason they don't bother is because the actual *recruitment* process sucks and takes too much time. The contributors are there, we have many of them, just getting them on board requires time that many of them don't have. It is one of the reasons we formed the proxy-maintainers project. 3. Get off CVS for Christ's sake. Nobody wants to work with that. I don't know how this fits into my bullet list, but it's important. I believe this is Irrelevant It's the least important of the three probably. The (lack of) recruitment process is the biggest problem. Again, there is no lack of recruitment process. It just takes time. Ask all these people who joined the project in the last year. I don't like the attitude pay in order to happen. This is a foss project, so people are supposed to see this as a hobby or a learning experience. It is not a job ;) Things are supposed to happen because they are fun You would be perfect for training new developers. Feel free to decline your salary =) I already do that ;) -- Regards, Markos Chandras / Gentoo Linux Developer / Key ID: B4AFF2C2
Re: [gentoo-dev] Attracting developers (Re: Packages up for grabs...)
On Sun, 16 Dec 2012 19:10:06 -0500 Michael Orlitzky mich...@orlitzky.com wrote: Parts of this docs are outdated but this does not matter. Get involved, fix bugs, help people and someone will ask you to join. Or look for a mentor. If your recruitment process is fix bugs for years and maybe someone will notice you, maybe not, then nobody is going to bother. There needs to be a clear, step-by-step process. This guy posted a graph the other day: http://hwoarang.silverarrow.org/wp-content/uploads/recruitment_stats.png I don't think a single graph is 'good enough' for the complexity of the problem. I probably do count to the 'gave up' no in the earlier years, yet I finally made it the other year. I wonder how many others like me are there. People aren't bothering. It's not because of any fundamental problem -- it's because the process is obscure and potentially a waste of time. I agree with that. The process takes a lot of time for a minor benefit, and most of it doesn't prove really helpful. I think the process should mostly prove that someone is able to find and read docs, write ebuilds and understand the major concepts. Honestly, I see no reason to ask recruits for a lot of things we do right now. There's no point in telling them to summarize a large piece of the docs. From my personal experience, there is a lot of things which you learn and then forget because you don't need them for a long time. -- Best regards, Michał Górny signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-dev] Attracting developers (Re: Packages up for grabs...)
On 16 December 2012 19:14, Michael Mol mike...@gmail.com wrote: People still think of Gentoo as a ricer distro that's broken all the time, when in reality, it's one of the most stable. Well that's not entirely true but that's a different issue What's not really true? That it's the most stable? or that people think of it as a ricer distro? It is definitely not the most stable. You can't even compare a rolling release distro with other distros when it comes to stability. It is just not possible. In order to have something stable, first you need to test a well-defined set of packages, then declare them (tag them) as stable, then have a dedicated team, tracking this tree, and fix potential bugs that may pop up. People may complain that Debian stable and Centos have ancient packages, but this is expected and it is a compromise between cutting-edge distro vs stability. -- Regards, Markos Chandras / Gentoo Linux Developer / Key ID: B4AFF2C2
Re: [gentoo-dev] Attracting developers (Re: Packages up for grabs...)
On 16 December 2012 18:53, Andreas K. Huettel dilfri...@gentoo.org wrote: 1. Even MediaWiki (wiki.gentoo.org) looks better than www.gentoo.org. That's impressive-bad. People still think of Gentoo as a ricer distro that's broken all the time, when in reality, it's one of the most stable. No one would suspect that anything has changed, though, since the homepage hasn't since before I could drink beer. It makes the entire distro look unmaintained. Yeah. Stable. Hehe... The problem with the entire webpage is that is coded in an extremely obscure way. It is probably easier to 100% replace it from scratch than to modify and improve it. Yes, I've tried to analyze once how e.g. the table of blog posts or the GLSA announcements on the main page come together. My personal suggestion would be to code an internal replacement and transparently port more and more pages to it (as a change mostly invisible from outside, with two content management systems running concurrently for a transition period). Once the transition is complete, improvements can be made in a more sweeping way. How to do this, however, and what software to target should probably be decided by people who know more than me... and in the end it all boils down to who has the time and motivation. Outsource it to someone who has the knowledge and interest in doing this. The foundation has the funds to support it, and none of us actually have the time to invest in a complete webpage redesign. 2. Nowhere is it actually spelled out how to become a developer. Let's google how to become a gentoo developer. This takes me to... http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/devrel/handbook/handbook.xml?part=1chap=2 which as far as I know, is complete bullshit. I should look for an opening in the monthly newsletter? Really? Or in #gentoo-bugs? That page BADLY needs an update. It should however probably also reflect reality in the sense that you cannot really apply to become a developer. What you can do is help out, be useful, get noticed, and be offered the job. (That at least is my personal impression on how it works.) Different devs got involved it totally different ways. But yes, you need to get involved in a team to get noticed and understand how things work. That a fairly good start. The fact that there are hundreds of different ways to reach a point where a recruiter picks you for interview makes it hard to document it. -- Regards, Markos Chandras / Gentoo Linux Developer / Key ID: B4AFF2C2
Re: [gentoo-dev] Attracting developers (Re: Packages up for grabs...)
On 17 December 2012 09:40, Michał Górny mgo...@gentoo.org wrote: On Sun, 16 Dec 2012 19:10:06 -0500 Michael Orlitzky mich...@orlitzky.com wrote: Parts of this docs are outdated but this does not matter. Get involved, fix bugs, help people and someone will ask you to join. Or look for a mentor. If your recruitment process is fix bugs for years and maybe someone will notice you, maybe not, then nobody is going to bother. There needs to be a clear, step-by-step process. This guy posted a graph the other day: http://hwoarang.silverarrow.org/wp-content/uploads/recruitment_stats.png I don't think a single graph is 'good enough' for the complexity of the problem. I probably do count to the 'gave up' no in the earlier years, yet I finally made it the other year. I wonder how many others like me are there. People aren't bothering. It's not because of any fundamental problem -- it's because the process is obscure and potentially a waste of time. I agree with that. The process takes a lot of time for a minor benefit, and most of it doesn't prove really helpful. I think the process should mostly prove that someone is able to find and read docs, write ebuilds and understand the major concepts. Honestly, I see no reason to ask recruits for a lot of things we do right now. There's no point in telling them to summarize a large piece of the docs. From my personal experience, there is a lot of things which you learn and then forget because you don't need them for a long time. -- Best regards, Michał Górny Somehow you need to make sure they actually read part of the docs and they will not commit random bits just because they though this was the correct way to do it. We are all people, and sometimes it's easier to assume something is right than actually investigating whether your assumption was right or not. And frankly, many mentors nowadays don't pay much attention in training their recruits. They just do a very limited quiz review and hand them to recruiters. I have interviewed a few people where they did not know basic stuff, like local use flags go to metadata.xml and not local.use.desc anymore etc and that's because their mentors did a very very bad job in preparing them. Be a responsible mentor, train them well, and the recruitment will be much faster than you might expect. -- Regards, Markos Chandras / Gentoo Linux Developer / Key ID: B4AFF2C2
Re: [gentoo-dev] Attracting developers (Re: Packages up for grabs...)
On Mon, Dec 17, 2012 at 11:43 AM, Markos Chandras hwoar...@gentoo.org wrote: Outsource it to someone who has the knowledge and interest in doing this. The foundation has the funds to support it, and none of us actually have the time to invest in a complete webpage redesign. If we have funds for this kind of thing, the PSF process is a good example: http://pythonorg-redesign.readthedocs.org/en/latest/ (And I think that would be a great idea.) Cheers, Dirkjan
Re: [gentoo-dev] Attracting developers (Re: Packages up for grabs...)
On Mon, Dec 17, 2012 at 5:43 AM, Markos Chandras hwoar...@gentoo.org wrote: Outsource it to someone who has the knowledge and interest in doing this. The foundation has the funds to support it, and none of us actually have the time to invest in a complete webpage redesign. Before we considered undertaking this, we need somebody with a long-term Gentoo commitment (preferably a dev or docs team member, or even forum moderators or similar role) who would be in a leadership position. You don't just hire somebody and point them at your website and say, make it better. I'd like to see somebody with passion/vision leading this rather than the collective groans of the mailing lists (valid as they may be). To be useful it needs to be maintained as well. If bringing in a professional is what it takes to get us over the hump into sustainability then I'm all for it. However, I don't think we have all our bases covered yet. We might find that once we address the long-term care of our site the need to bring in a professional goes away. However, if we get a vibrant team together to care for the site I'm sure the Trustees will weigh their recommendations heavily. We generally don't bikeshed - if infra says they need to replace a hard drive we pay for it. If the web site had a similar team caring for it I'm sure we'd work with them, and likely let them lead the interviews as well. As a volunteer distro the first preference is of course that we fix things ourselves. However, I fully recognize that good web development is a skillset. Rich
Re: [gentoo-dev] Attracting developers (Re: Packages up for grabs...)
On 17 December 2012 12:31, Dirkjan Ochtman d...@gentoo.org wrote: On Mon, Dec 17, 2012 at 11:43 AM, Markos Chandras hwoar...@gentoo.org wrote: Outsource it to someone who has the knowledge and interest in doing this. The foundation has the funds to support it, and none of us actually have the time to invest in a complete webpage redesign. If we have funds for this kind of thing, the PSF process is a good example: http://pythonorg-redesign.readthedocs.org/en/latest/ (And I think that would be a great idea.) Cheers, Dirkjan I believe this is something that this[1] project needs to decide and set it in motion. [1]http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/pr/website.xml -- Regards, Markos Chandras / Gentoo Linux Developer / Key ID: B4AFF2C2
Re: [gentoo-dev] Attracting developers (Re: Packages up for grabs...)
On 17 December 2012 14:08, Rich Freeman ri...@gentoo.org wrote: On Mon, Dec 17, 2012 at 5:43 AM, Markos Chandras hwoar...@gentoo.org wrote: Outsource it to someone who has the knowledge and interest in doing this. The foundation has the funds to support it, and none of us actually have the time to invest in a complete webpage redesign. Before we considered undertaking this, we need somebody with a long-term Gentoo commitment (preferably a dev or docs team member, or even forum moderators or similar role) who would be in a leadership position. You don't just hire somebody and point them at your website and say, make it better. I'd like to see somebody with passion/vision leading this rather than the collective groans of the mailing lists (valid as they may be). Ehm I never said to blindly assign this task to someone. This is why I said that the website project[1] should take initiative here :) [1]http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/pr/website.xml -- Regards, Markos Chandras / Gentoo Linux Developer / Key ID: B4AFF2C2
Re: [gentoo-dev] Attracting developers (Re: Packages up for grabs...)
On 2012.12.17 15:15, Markos Chandras wrote: On 17 December 2012 12:31, Dirkjan Ochtman d...@gentoo.org wrote: On Mon, Dec 17, 2012 at 11:43 AM, Markos Chandras hwoar...@gentoo.org wrote: Outsource it to someone who has the knowledge and interest in doing this. The foundation has the funds to support it, and none of us actually have the time to invest in a complete webpage redesign. If we have funds for this kind of thing, the PSF process is a good example: http://pythonorg-redesign.readthedocs.org/en/latest/ (And I think that would be a great idea.) Cheers, Dirkjan I believe this is something that this[1] project needs to decide and set it in motion. [1]http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/pr/website.xml -- Regards, Markos Chandras / Gentoo Linux Developer / Key ID: B4AFF2C2 To make this project a suitable project for Foundation funding, it needs a clearly defined specification that can be circulated for interested parties to provide fixed price quotations against. The specification provides several things:- 1. the scope of work (out of scope work is extra cost) 2. the basis to judge completion (so we pay the fee) 3. some guidance as to implementation details I know that 3. is unusual in a requirement specification but in this case it is unlikely that the Foundation would fund ongoing mainatainace, so we would need to dictate a few implementation details. e.g. no Flash, Gentoo colours, Its worth contrasting this sort of thing with a bug bounty. The requirement is easy - fix the bug. Judging completion is fairly straight forward too. The patch is accepted by $UPSTREAM. The requirement specification for a website is a lot of work by comparison. Suppose the team in [1] above wrote the specification, who needs to agree it? The council, the trustees, the body of devs ... some combination of that list. All in all, producing an agreed specification for a website it probably as much work as actually building the site. It could easily be as much work as the PMS. Anyway, I'm rambling a little. In summary, if we decide to outsource the website project, it needs to be carefully controlled. -- Regards, Roy Bamford (Neddyseagoon) a member of elections gentoo-ops forum-mods trustees pgpTJWDmoCdNZ.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-dev] Attracting developers (Re: Packages up for grabs...)
On Sun, 16 Dec 2012 14:14:49 -0500 Michael Mol mike...@gmail.com wrote: I face funroll-loops references and worse almost every time I bring up Gentoo among a different group of Linux-familiar technical people. There are still *very* strong prejudices against Gentoo in most places Comparing Gentoo to binary Linux distros is simply using the wrong analogy. I use Gentoo/Linux the way other people use some BSD with ports - this is where Gentoo stands out, and compiler flags have little to do with it. Build time configuration does. You pick a development base, build and install packages you want on top of that, and you end up running a stable system for years that is relatively easy to patch up as and when needed. The difference between many other ports-like distros and Gentoo is that it is usually very well possible to do rolling upgrades and we make that difference by ensuring a neverending progression from unstable to stable, instead of calling a freeze every so often and picking up new developments for future stable releases. I've brought it up. But when I bring it up, and I argue against those funroll-loops references, one or two people come out of lurking and admit that they use it...and it's a surprise to people around them. There you go! Just explain that compiler optimisation is not the reason you use it. Then you should have their attention and you can start to explain the actual reasons you use it. It may make them feel rather stupid about the plonk in the CD and roll with it attitude that they must have picked up from some antiquated locked-down distro[1]. :) I've started describing it as a coming out of the closet experience for a reason... There's a _serious_ reputation issue that Gentoo still hasn't completely sloughed off...which is incredibly sad. The same reputation issue that FreeBSD and OpenBSD have, no doubt. :wq There is an app for that: alias :wq='echo OK, I quit!' jer [1] Heck, nowadays even Windows and Mac OS X support several ports-like source-based software distros, despite sandboxed, walled-gardened app stores for people who find it easier to pay for stuff than to wonder how to get the software they need for free. And that's entirely fair: it's a design/implementation decision everyone has to make according to their own needs, expectations, limitations and experience.
Re: [gentoo-dev] Attracting developers (Re: Packages up for grabs...)
On Mon, Dec 17, 2012 at 7:32 PM, Roy Bamford neddyseag...@gentoo.org wrote: Suppose the team in [1] above wrote the specification, who needs to agree it? The council, the trustees, the body of devs ... some combination of that list. All in all, producing an agreed specification for a website it probably as much work as actually building the site. It could easily be as much work as the PMS. I don't think the whole body of devs has to agree to it. The trustees definitely have to, since they have to fork over the cash. The council probably also makes sense. I think producing a specification for the website would be much work, but work to which most of us would probably more suited than the work of actually building the site. Building a good site is a lot of hard work, too. Is the website team actually active these days? Cheers, Dirkjan
Re: [gentoo-dev] Attracting developers (Re: Packages up for grabs...)
On Mon, Dec 17, 2012 at 4:35 PM, Dirkjan Ochtman d...@gentoo.org wrote: On Mon, Dec 17, 2012 at 7:32 PM, Roy Bamford neddyseag...@gentoo.org wrote: Suppose the team in [1] above wrote the specification, who needs to agree it? I don't think the whole body of devs has to agree to it. The trustees definitely have to, since they have to fork over the cash. The council probably also makes sense. Most logical thing is for the website team to get together and suggest something, and then can work with the rest of the devs to gather input as they see fit. They can then put together a proposal for the trustees. Generally speaking as long as the website team has done reasonable due diligence we aren't going to shoot holes in it. That would be about as productive as getting into a debate with the infra team about how many data centers we want to have hardware in, etc. Those who care should step up and join the appropriate project. Those who don't care that much should try not to get in the way in the name of offering advice. The biggest thing the trustees are likely to help with are ensuring we've done due diligence around bids/etc. Generally funding requests involve all of a few emails and a vote - this should be no different as we shouldn't be contemplating some $20k development project. Is the website team actually active these days? I think that should be our focus. Rather than just going back and forth about all the wonderful things that could happen if somebody actually cared about our website, we need people to actually step up and be willing to do something about it. Our website is at least functional for the moment. It certainly could be better, but it takes more than dollars to make that happen. We can't pay people to care. Rich
[gentoo-dev] Attracting developers (Re: Packages up for grabs...)
Inspired by the number of packages being unmaintained -- why not use some of that bug bounty money to fix up the recruitment documentation and maybe give the webpage a makeover? Marketing is a big part of the problem. 1. Even MediaWiki (wiki.gentoo.org) looks better than www.gentoo.org. That's impressive-bad. People still think of Gentoo as a ricer distro that's broken all the time, when in reality, it's one of the most stable. No one would suspect that anything has changed, though, since the homepage hasn't since before I could drink beer. It makes the entire distro look unmaintained. 2. Nowhere is it actually spelled out how to become a developer. Let's google how to become a gentoo developer. This takes me to... http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/devrel/handbook/handbook.xml?part=1chap=2 which as far as I know, is complete bullshit. I should look for an opening in the monthly newsletter? Really? Or in #gentoo-bugs? 3. Get off CVS for Christ's sake. Nobody wants to work with that. I don't know how this fits into my bullet list, but it's important. All three of those problems are boring and will suck to fix -- perfect candidates for bug bounties.
Re: [gentoo-dev] Attracting developers (Re: Packages up for grabs...)
On 16-12-2012 11:57:35 -0500, Michael Orlitzky wrote: 3. Get off CVS for Christ's sake. Nobody wants to work with that. I don't know how this fits into my bullet list, but it's important. It doesn't, and it's not. -- Fabian Groffen Gentoo on a different level signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: [gentoo-dev] Attracting developers (Re: Packages up for grabs...)
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On 12/16/2012 12:02 PM, Fabian Groffen wrote: On 16-12-2012 11:57:35 -0500, Michael Orlitzky wrote: 3. Get off CVS for Christ's sake. Nobody wants to work with that. I don't know how this fits into my bullet list, but it's important. It doesn't, and it's not. I'm not going to put together a powerpoint presentation for you, but think about it this way. Many new developers who want to contribute to to some project will learn git, because a large number of important projects use git. No (new) developers are going to learn CVS. Ever. Therefore, we can rule out using CVS is helping us attract new developers. -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v2.0.19 (GNU/Linux) iQIcBAEBAgAGBQJQzgLKAAoJEBxJck0inpOiIfQQAK2y29KsUXGd4XOcsjB5a/E7 OWPRKlJL/vha/mOG3S7hHnQTrOIeA26rXkhds73dXh7Sg4WeifgxHyhbtIWfvfGR ZBkS8kpbKNv3I8qUwqDXYqgj7W3vv4zyvcmixvUX304A28foac2gUvwKcivZpJCr dj/hbPDyOhcl7/fw3mQCJ3aiyzdIuo0zLyKnq+4PtvbS6A90GWxypZKr1W602z3A Spd90YsPciH+y27AE+rhm8qDPpryzKGz+iX/zFmFBFk2A0gqMcYssffYo6xY6PZp PCLBvFrUIm7o7f93W7BZS3NHJzZ+GDKG0FliCS7EMvT2KJ7hxIETC5TuVTQ8W9JK LIPeEtUGTIVgreN9AkWDk+B2IAeJnN1XaYFPvNmDhUdkTioxkl3HfIs1ar26R5IV 58VsXt4wWc1GrG0N8LH/GTiarZY/cv9Xxq0isAN9AVHrelN1i12fuSEbEC9E+vBQ ujaCePO2eJoanAtPZjzLqNW6N9b2Gra/8Fo07cQosEW84a0A+xOgFmT4pVzTyycV 47PIw8rtkTvPwe6WS3lakMnEkV0GTu1MtteEXGyAK43QkLxJBiq6W3rh02+HEIVP Lp68bIXyWblYLZZQkDJOHUgbqSu9bs63JUsFzcycOiOkiR8ROtHnjkTjIaz3aLEZ V863lo2AlS3HDoC8w4WU =3pRr -END PGP SIGNATURE-
Re: [gentoo-dev] Attracting developers (Re: Packages up for grabs...)
On 16-12-2012 12:20:10 -0500, Michael Orlitzky wrote: Many new developers who want to contribute to to some project will learn git, because a large number of important projects use git. No (new) developers are going to learn CVS. Ever. Therefore, we can rule out using CVS is helping us attract new developers. But it's sufficiently easy to learn (significantly easier than git) that any person who is not capable of doing so would unlikely be a good candiate to become a Gentoo developer. -- Fabian Groffen Gentoo on a different level signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: [gentoo-dev] Attracting developers (Re: Packages up for grabs...)
On 16/12/12 18:57, Michael Orlitzky wrote: 3. Get off CVS for Christ's sake. Nobody wants to work with that. I don't know how this fits into my bullet list, but it's important. Meh. I actually like CVS and it's very suitable for gentoo-x86 tree. However, if enough people want a change, I'll change with it...
Re: [gentoo-dev] Attracting developers (Re: Packages up for grabs...)
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On 12/16/2012 12:23 PM, Fabian Groffen wrote: On 16-12-2012 12:20:10 -0500, Michael Orlitzky wrote: Many new developers who want to contribute to to some project will learn git, because a large number of important projects use git. No (new) developers are going to learn CVS. Ever. Therefore, we can rule out using CVS is helping us attract new developers. But it's sufficiently easy to learn (significantly easier than git) that any person who is not capable of doing so would unlikely be a good candiate to become a Gentoo developer. Actually, I agree with this. But lots of people who are capable of learning CVS just don't want to, since it's (soon to be) a useless skill and perceived as a waste of time. Requiring everyone to do so is a disincentive -- that's all that I was suggesting. By eliminating the disincentive, you potentially attract more developers. You don't want to attract incompetent people obviously, but the overall cost/benefit of becoming a Gentoo developer needs to be less than that of saying screw it and working on Arch instead. When it isn't, you lose people. -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v2.0.19 (GNU/Linux) iQIcBAEBAgAGBQJQzgeGAAoJEBxJck0inpOilBIQAKpvRMyoGk4RaSHJ+lirPzOa MUXNyGWx1799Vud5/xCj86Yse9iA3Dz3lBIJTdJsFH+sAIh0W4YXiDTBNd5s/WoX Yry67BxWCyIffYtGvuF2z50kiorDyecgU1RP2Iu9BIjal0NBpoQnDmkzJNIHQYlT ZjxdEc2q0SNN8gne7B+MMT3JFAOHzw04AEPGzPBCupIt4QZnGegbX6G2v3ztfJM3 yIJ1r4aWH7BdWpUKB53SM3o7ZGP2A+g8xananEAg15bmVsvJvOspr8M2bZTuK6wC x+rwEiCQXCFhFGMz5MDiQlj59nSo7EYIOI4BY8S9RsrvQd9G2nNZkFkfhHcuVtll uZ8SyZ3yVtgKZaRpt9aS0voRTshNtSgJijzZvaAGmnHU05w17VKXtI2M4pmEkTSq QkkAtn3Zo9yvqcrX45cLgffPVDNsNFq8we80t7otbW7GLIss9bIuETY4DfLLpVxq VDOfsAptmny8sOE7ULM9pdZHONHZWaacqpQzCXhhx48ZdWSO06pEVyLcGx8kSlYs U+3tgm+0tY8qIQpTm/+afeXy2asaSQ3G3G/X19M/DgjYD/b67LjYMYS7cWhs9imB QFxiffuQ54WMxKHkFfwil7jkbsqsap/Iqjy4rToCOqJMCl7/j6sXwj/02ckePrBh tPGbmsLpTh6yO3bTQIQ1 =eTpd -END PGP SIGNATURE-
Re: [gentoo-dev] Attracting developers (Re: Packages up for grabs...)
I completely agree, myself, I want to become a developer, but since the information looks so scattered, I decided to wait until summer to have all the required time to find/read all relevant documentation and foillow up with the recruitment process (which seems to be somehow 'non-trivial'). As an aside, which may or may not reflect the view of other potential candidates, even though I use git for my personal projects, having to learn CVS would not be an issue if I'm already willing to learn everything else. (However, if there is no guarantee that this will be useful, why is it a requirement in the first place?) Damien On 12/16/12 11:57, Michael Orlitzky wrote: Inspired by the number of packages being unmaintained -- why not use some of that bug bounty money to fix up the recruitment documentation and maybe give the webpage a makeover? Marketing is a big part of the problem. 1. Even MediaWiki (wiki.gentoo.org) looks better than www.gentoo.org. That's impressive-bad. People still think of Gentoo as a ricer distro that's broken all the time, when in reality, it's one of the most stable. No one would suspect that anything has changed, though, since the homepage hasn't since before I could drink beer. It makes the entire distro look unmaintained. 2. Nowhere is it actually spelled out how to become a developer. Let's google how to become a gentoo developer. This takes me to... http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/devrel/handbook/handbook.xml?part=1chap=2 which as far as I know, is complete bullshit. I should look for an opening in the monthly newsletter? Really? Or in #gentoo-bugs? 3. Get off CVS for Christ's sake. Nobody wants to work with that. I don't know how this fits into my bullet list, but it's important. All three of those problems are boring and will suck to fix -- perfect candidates for bug bounties.
Re: [gentoo-dev] Attracting developers (Re: Packages up for grabs...)
On 16-12-2012 12:40:23 -0500, Michael Orlitzky wrote: Actually, I agree with this. But lots of people who are capable of learning CVS just don't want to, since it's (soon to be) a useless skill and perceived as a waste of time. Requiring everyone to do so is a disincentive -- that's all that I was suggesting. By eliminating the disincentive, you potentially attract more developers. You know just as good as me that this is being worked on. I see no need to reiterate on the topic. -- Fabian Groffen Gentoo on a different level signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: [gentoo-dev] Attracting developers (Re: Packages up for grabs...)
On 16.12.2012 18:20, Michael Orlitzky wrote: On 12/16/2012 12:02 PM, Fabian Groffen wrote: On 16-12-2012 11:57:35 -0500, Michael Orlitzky wrote: 3. Get off CVS for Christ's sake. Nobody wants to work with that. I don't know how this fits into my bullet list, but it's important. It doesn't, and it's not. I'm not going to put together a powerpoint presentation for you, but think about it this way. Many new developers who want to contribute to to some project will learn git, because a large number of important projects use git. No (new) developers are going to learn CVS. Ever. But there's nothing to learn... You only need to c'n'p code listings 1.1 - 1.3 [1] once in a lifetime of your dev box. Then you only type 'cvs up' for the rest of your developer life. If you ever encounter anything unusual and you don't want to waste precious time to even read the warning/error message you rm -rf offending directory and you do... 'cvs up'. How hard is that? Cheers, Kacper [1] http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/devrel/handbook/handbook.xml?part=1chap=4 signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: [gentoo-dev] Attracting developers (Re: Packages up for grabs...)
1. Even MediaWiki (wiki.gentoo.org) looks better than www.gentoo.org. That's impressive-bad. People still think of Gentoo as a ricer distro that's broken all the time, when in reality, it's one of the most stable. No one would suspect that anything has changed, though, since the homepage hasn't since before I could drink beer. It makes the entire distro look unmaintained. Yeah. Stable. Hehe... The problem with the entire webpage is that is coded in an extremely obscure way. It is probably easier to 100% replace it from scratch than to modify and improve it. Yes, I've tried to analyze once how e.g. the table of blog posts or the GLSA announcements on the main page come together. My personal suggestion would be to code an internal replacement and transparently port more and more pages to it (as a change mostly invisible from outside, with two content management systems running concurrently for a transition period). Once the transition is complete, improvements can be made in a more sweeping way. How to do this, however, and what software to target should probably be decided by people who know more than me... and in the end it all boils down to who has the time and motivation. 2. Nowhere is it actually spelled out how to become a developer. Let's google how to become a gentoo developer. This takes me to... http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/devrel/handbook/handbook.xml?part=1chap=2 which as far as I know, is complete bullshit. I should look for an opening in the monthly newsletter? Really? Or in #gentoo-bugs? That page BADLY needs an update. It should however probably also reflect reality in the sense that you cannot really apply to become a developer. What you can do is help out, be useful, get noticed, and be offered the job. (That at least is my personal impression on how it works.) 3. Get off CVS for Christ's sake. Nobody wants to work with that. I don't know how this fits into my bullet list, but it's important. There's exactly one argument in favour of CVS, and Fabian has already made it. Indeed CVS *is* stone age software. However, until you've actually become a Gentoo dev, you will not need to touch it, and then learning the minimal CVS requirements should then be the very least of your worries. So this point is probably a bit out of context here. (/me remembers that the monthly reminder mail how is the migration going still needs to be sent...) Cheers, A -- Andreas K. Huettel Gentoo Linux developer dilfri...@gentoo.org http://www.akhuettel.de/ signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part.
Re: [gentoo-dev] Attracting developers (Re: Packages up for grabs...)
On 16 December 2012 16:57, Michael Orlitzky mich...@orlitzky.com wrote: Inspired by the number of packages being unmaintained -- why not use some of that bug bounty money to fix up the recruitment documentation Recruitment documentatiob? What does that mean? People still think of Gentoo as a ricer distro that's broken all the time, when in reality, it's one of the most stable. Well that's not entirely true but that's a different issue would suspect that anything has changed, though, since the homepage hasn't since before I could drink beer. It makes the entire distro look unmaintained. Note quite. The activity of a distro is measure but the # of devs, packages in tree, activity on bugzilla and mailing lists etc. The design of a website does not really say much. Many foss projects still have static html pages. This does not mean they are dead. The pr@ team recently did a survey for the website etc. You may want to ask them what happened and what's their plan. 2. Nowhere is it actually spelled out how to become a developer. Let's google how to become a gentoo developer. This takes me to... http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/devrel/handbook/handbook.xml?part=1chap=2 which as far as I know, is complete bullshit. I should look for an opening in the monthly newsletter? Really? Or in #gentoo-bugs? Parts of this docs are outdated but this does not matter. Get involved, fix bugs, help people and someone will ask you to join. Or look for a mentor. 3. Get off CVS for Christ's sake. Nobody wants to work with that. I don't know how this fits into my bullet list, but it's important. I believe this is Irrelevant All three of those problems are boring and will suck to fix -- perfect candidates for bug bounties. I don't like the attitude pay in order to happen. This is a foss project, so people are supposed to see this as a hobby or a learning experience. It is not a job ;) Things are supposed to happen because they are fun -- Regards, Markos Chandras / Gentoo Linux Developer / Key ID: B4AFF2C2
Re: [gentoo-dev] Attracting developers (Re: Packages up for grabs...)
On Sun, Dec 16, 2012 at 2:04 PM, Markos Chandras hwoar...@gentoo.org wrote: On 16 December 2012 16:57, Michael Orlitzky mich...@orlitzky.com wrote: Inspired by the number of packages being unmaintained -- why not use some of that bug bounty money to fix up the recruitment documentation Recruitment documentatiob? What does that mean? People still think of Gentoo as a ricer distro that's broken all the time, when in reality, it's one of the most stable. Well that's not entirely true but that's a different issue What's not really true? That it's the most stable? or that people think of it as a ricer distro? I face funroll-loops references and worse almost every time I bring up Gentoo among a different group of Linux-familiar technical people. There are still *very* strong prejudices against Gentoo in most places I've brought it up. But when I bring it up, and I argue against those funroll-loops references, one or two people come out of lurking and admit that they use it...and it's a surprise to people around them. I've started describing it as a coming out of the closet experience for a reason... There's a _serious_ reputation issue that Gentoo still hasn't completely sloughed off...which is incredibly sad. Of all the distros I've used, I've come to the conclusion that Gentoo is the easily nicest for almost anyone even moderately technical. -- :wq
Re: [gentoo-dev] Attracting developers (Re: Packages up for grabs...)
On Sun, Dec 16, 2012 at 11:14 AM, Michael Mol mike...@gmail.com wrote: On Sun, Dec 16, 2012 at 2:04 PM, Markos Chandras hwoar...@gentoo.org wrote: On 16 December 2012 16:57, Michael Orlitzky mich...@orlitzky.com wrote: Inspired by the number of packages being unmaintained -- why not use some of that bug bounty money to fix up the recruitment documentation Recruitment documentatiob? What does that mean? People still think of Gentoo as a ricer distro that's broken all the time, when in reality, it's one of the most stable. Well that's not entirely true but that's a different issue What's not really true? That it's the most stable? or that people think of it as a ricer distro? Its a rolling distro; compared to static release distros (Ubuntu LTS, Debian Stable) it is not even close to the most stable because it changes frequently. I face funroll-loops references and worse almost every time I bring up Gentoo among a different group of Linux-familiar technical people. There are still *very* strong prejudices against Gentoo in most places I've brought it up. But when I bring it up, and I argue against those funroll-loops references, one or two people come out of lurking and admit that they use it...and it's a surprise to people around them. I've encountered different anecdotes; but in the end that is all they are. Many technical people I encounter say they used Gentoo at one time or another, learned a lot, then moved on to new things. I've started describing it as a coming out of the closet experience for a reason... There's a _serious_ reputation issue that Gentoo still hasn't completely sloughed off...which is incredibly sad. Of all the distros I've used, I've come to the conclusion that Gentoo is the easily nicest for almost anyone even moderately technical. At least in the working world, most technical people just want to get things done; Linux is just one tool in their toolbox for doing this. Most of them don't want to spent time messing with their distro; they just want things to work out of the box, configured the way they like (and I don't mean USE flags in this context, I mean the UI.) -- :wq
Re: [gentoo-dev] Attracting developers (Re: Packages up for grabs...)
On Sun, 16 Dec 2012 19:43:52 +0100 Kacper Kowalik xarthis...@gentoo.org wrote: On 16.12.2012 18:20, Michael Orlitzky wrote: On 12/16/2012 12:02 PM, Fabian Groffen wrote: On 16-12-2012 11:57:35 -0500, Michael Orlitzky wrote: 3. Get off CVS for Christ's sake. Nobody wants to work with that. I don't know how this fits into my bullet list, but it's important. It doesn't, and it's not. I'm not going to put together a powerpoint presentation for you, but think about it this way. Many new developers who want to contribute to to some project will learn git, because a large number of important projects use git. No (new) developers are going to learn CVS. Ever. But there's nothing to learn... You only need to c'n'p code listings 1.1 - 1.3 [1] once in a lifetime of your dev box. Then you only type 'cvs up' for the rest of your developer life. If you ever encounter anything unusual and you don't want to waste precious time to even read the warning/error message you rm -rf offending directory and you do... 'cvs up'. How hard is that? Did you mean 'cvs up -dP'? i think you've just proven that it is actually not friendly at all. You also have to move files to random locations to be able to keep a few changes at a time, maintain ChangeLogs, make sure not to mistakenly commit 'repo_name' when you're workgin with a partial checkout and, of course, remove it from profiles/ ChangeLogs all the time. Yes, CVS is one of the biggest PITA in Gentoo. -- Best regards, Michał Górny signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-dev] Attracting developers (Re: Packages up for grabs...)
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA256 On Sun, 16 Dec 2012 12:20:10 -0500 Michael Orlitzky mich...@orlitzky.com wrote: -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On 12/16/2012 12:02 PM, Fabian Groffen wrote: On 16-12-2012 11:57:35 -0500, Michael Orlitzky wrote: 3. Get off CVS for Christ's sake. Nobody wants to work with that. I don't know how this fits into my bullet list, but it's important. It doesn't, and it's not. I'm not going to put together a powerpoint presentation for you, but think about it this way. Get off powerpoint for your god of choice's sake. Nobody wants to work with that (well, everybody I meet outside actually wants but whatever) :P. Sorry, couldn't resist. Sorry, couldn't resist. - -- Best regards, Michał Górny -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v2.0.19 (GNU/Linux) iJwEAQEIAAYFAlDOPeQACgkQfXuS5UK5QB2lHwP/Uzb3vJiKtDwOrXr4bDuOGOn1 n6ZKyPIZqYpKFxc8fJ9fnXHXOgyB5Zkt1Lg+ezDUeCNS5klkMJ6GO9VswY7n49gi xuDtyS4nqTofjLWC6bC7+k+vysb6sPZ1bVK7WHYIjafWTKxbzCd28Fr3vn4cnOW1 YhW38toUk9g4zzrZ/do= =WXRY -END PGP SIGNATURE-
Re: [gentoo-dev] Attracting developers (Re: Packages up for grabs...)
On 12/16/2012 12:20 PM, Michael Orlitzky wrote: On 12/16/2012 12:02 PM, Fabian Groffen wrote: On 16-12-2012 11:57:35 -0500, Michael Orlitzky wrote: 3. Get off CVS for Christ's sake. Nobody wants to work with that. I don't know how this fits into my bullet list, but it's important. It doesn't, and it's not. I'm not going to put together a powerpoint presentation for you, but think about it this way. Many new developers who want to contribute to to some project will learn git, because a large number of important projects use git. No (new) developers are going to learn CVS. Ever. Therefore, we can rule out using CVS is helping us attract new developers. I have to agree with grobian. Gentoo development involves minimal CVS knowledge. People pull from CVS and use repoman to commit. Repoman is necessary for committing changes to CVS in a way that guarentees that the tree is consistent and does quite a few QA checks to ensure that mistakes are not made. In my experience it works equally well with both CVS and GIT. With that said, we have a GIT migration planned, but it has taken years because people want to preserve the CVS history. signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: [gentoo-dev] Attracting developers (Re: Packages up for grabs...)
El dom, 16-12-2012 a las 12:49 -0500, Damien Levac escribió: I completely agree, myself, I want to become a developer, but since the information looks so scattered, I decided to wait until summer to have all the required time to find/read all relevant documentation and foillow up with the recruitment process (which seems to be somehow 'non-trivial'). As an aside, which may or may not reflect the view of other potential candidates, even though I use git for my personal projects, having to learn CVS would not be an issue if I'm already willing to learn everything else. (However, if there is no guarantee that this will be useful, why is it a requirement in the first place?) Damien For now, I think you should simply go to devmanual: http://devmanual.gentoo.org/ You will need to read it sooner and later... and I am sure that you will read it faster as you think once you start to read ;) Best regards! :) signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: [gentoo-dev] Attracting developers (Re: Packages up for grabs...)
This is funny, because after replying to the list, I actually wrote myself a script to extract that manual from the website into pdf. I should start reading soon... after my other book... xD Damien On 12/16/12 17:34, Pacho Ramos wrote: El dom, 16-12-2012 a las 12:49 -0500, Damien Levac escribió: I completely agree, myself, I want to become a developer, but since the information looks so scattered, I decided to wait until summer to have all the required time to find/read all relevant documentation and foillow up with the recruitment process (which seems to be somehow 'non-trivial'). As an aside, which may or may not reflect the view of other potential candidates, even though I use git for my personal projects, having to learn CVS would not be an issue if I'm already willing to learn everything else. (However, if there is no guarantee that this will be useful, why is it a requirement in the first place?) Damien For now, I think you should simply go to devmanual: http://devmanual.gentoo.org/ You will need to read it sooner and later... and I am sure that you will read it faster as you think once you start to read ;) Best regards! :)
Re: [gentoo-dev] Attracting developers (Re: Packages up for grabs...)
On 12/16/12 16:32, Michał Górny wrote: Get off powerpoint for your god of choice's sake. Nobody wants to work with that (well, everybody I meet outside actually wants but whatever) :P. Sorry, couldn't resist. I was hoping nobody would call my bluff. This is the only avenue available to me for creating a powerpoint presentation: $ echo I KNOW I'M RIGHT git-cvs-statistics-2012.pptx
Re: [gentoo-dev] Attracting developers (Re: Packages up for grabs...)
On 12/16/12 13:53, Andreas K. Huettel wrote: 1. Even MediaWiki (wiki.gentoo.org) looks better than www.gentoo.org. That's impressive-bad. People still think of Gentoo as a ricer distro that's broken all the time, when in reality, it's one of the most stable. No one would suspect that anything has changed, though, since the homepage hasn't since before I could drink beer. It makes the entire distro look unmaintained. Yeah. Stable. Hehe... The problem with the entire webpage is that is coded in an extremely obscure way. It is probably easier to 100% replace it from scratch than to modify and improve it. Yes, I've tried to analyze once how e.g. the table of blog posts or the GLSA announcements on the main page come together. My personal suggestion would be to code an internal replacement and transparently port more and more pages to it (as a change mostly invisible from outside, with two content management systems running concurrently for a transition period). Once the transition is complete, improvements can be made in a more sweeping way. How to do this, however, and what software to target should probably be decided by people who know more than me... and in the end it all boils down to who has the time and motivation. This sounds reasonable, but it's a huge project either way. No one is ever going to have the time or motivation, thus the suggestion to do a bug bounty for it.
Re: [gentoo-dev] Attracting developers (Re: Packages up for grabs...)
On 12/16/12 14:04, Markos Chandras wrote: On 16 December 2012 16:57, Michael Orlitzky mich...@orlitzky.com wrote: Inspired by the number of packages being unmaintained -- why not use some of that bug bounty money to fix up the recruitment documentation Recruitment documentatiob? What does that mean? People still think of Gentoo as a ricer distro that's broken all the time, when in reality, it's one of the most stable. Well that's not entirely true but that's a different issue The first part is definitely true. The stable part is also true in my experience, all things considered. For an example, take the last what's your favorite distro post on Reddit (not exactly a representative sample, I know): http://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/14tpnt/of_all_the_distros_youve_ever_used_what_do_you/ Top rated comment: Tie between Arch and Gentoo. These are my messing around distros. Fun to install and tweak on older machines, but I don't know enough about them to use them full time. Plus, Gentoo breaks. A lot. Arch breaks much more often than Debian for me but much less than Gentoo. Further down: Gentoo is not stable. Stop saying that. My experience mirrors Michael Mol's. Perception is bad. Reality not so much. Note quite. The activity of a distro is measure but the # of devs, packages in tree, activity on bugzilla and mailing lists etc. The design of a website does not really say much. Many foss projects still have static html pages. This does not mean they are dead. The actual activity, yes. The perceived activity... eh. And that's what gets you new users and developers. Parts of this docs are outdated but this does not matter. Get involved, fix bugs, help people and someone will ask you to join. Or look for a mentor. If your recruitment process is fix bugs for years and maybe someone will notice you, maybe not, then nobody is going to bother. There needs to be a clear, step-by-step process. This guy posted a graph the other day: http://hwoarang.silverarrow.org/wp-content/uploads/recruitment_stats.png People aren't bothering. It's not because of any fundamental problem -- it's because the process is obscure and potentially a waste of time. 3. Get off CVS for Christ's sake. Nobody wants to work with that. I don't know how this fits into my bullet list, but it's important. I believe this is Irrelevant It's the least important of the three probably. The (lack of) recruitment process is the biggest problem. I don't like the attitude pay in order to happen. This is a foss project, so people are supposed to see this as a hobby or a learning experience. It is not a job ;) Things are supposed to happen because they are fun You would be perfect for training new developers. Feel free to decline your salary =)
Re: [gentoo-dev] Attracting developers (Re: Packages up for grabs...)
On 12/17/12 08:10, Michael Orlitzky wrote: On 12/16/12 14:04, Markos Chandras wrote: On 16 December 2012 16:57, Michael Orlitzky mich...@orlitzky.com wrote: Inspired by the number of packages being unmaintained -- why not use some of that bug bounty money to fix up the recruitment documentation Recruitment documentatiob? What does that mean? People still think of Gentoo as a ricer distro that's broken all the time, when in reality, it's one of the most stable. Well that's not entirely true but that's a different issue The first part is definitely true. The stable part is also true in my experience, all things considered. For an example, take the last what's your favorite distro post on Reddit (not exactly a representative sample, I know): http://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/14tpnt/of_all_the_distros_youve_ever_used_what_do_you/ Top rated comment: Tie between Arch and Gentoo. These are my messing around distros. Fun to install and tweak on older machines, but I don't know enough about them to use them full time. Plus, Gentoo breaks. A lot. Arch breaks much more often than Debian for me but much less than Gentoo. Further down: Gentoo is not stable. Stop saying that. My experience mirrors Michael Mol's. Perception is bad. Reality not so much. And then you look what people do to get to that conclusion ... I unmasked gcc-4.8, migrated back to glibc-2.5 so I could build binaries for CentOS 5, and started from a sabayon install because it's easier. My CFLAGS include make-faster things like -ffast-math and -O8 Plus people don't look at warnings unless they are interactive prompts that ask them so answer a question about the warning. So yeah, if you hit things with a hammer they break. And we make it easy for people to do that :) On the other hand I could tell you about Enterprise Distros that patch their gcc so badly that it is confused about its version, and many other funny things. Everything breaks at some point, I started using Gentoo because I was able to fix that breakage, thus enabling me to use my computer instead of just ranting about it. Internally, I think, we're doing ok, now we just need to make our PR effective again (which has been an ongoing project for half a decade ...)
Re: [gentoo-dev] Attracting developers (Re: Packages up for grabs...)
On Sun, 2012-12-16 at 19:10 -0500, Michael Orlitzky wrote: On 12/16/12 14:04, Markos Chandras wrote: snip... This guy posted a graph the other day: http://hwoarang.silverarrow.org/wp-content/uploads/recruitment_stats.png HA, HA, that's a good one... quote the the above link to the guy that created and posted it in the first place :D People aren't bothering. It's not because of any fundamental problem -- it's because the process is obscure and potentially a waste of time. 3. Get off CVS for Christ's sake. Nobody wants to work with that. I don't know how this fits into my bullet list, but it's important. I believe this is Irrelevant It's the least important of the three probably. The (lack of) recruitment process is the biggest problem. The git migration is making progress. It is nearly there. From what I know, there are a few things holding it up right now... 1) one of the main dev's working on it has had a computer failure and busy work schedule. 2) waiting for me to code the new gentoo-keys project which will manage the gpg keyrings needed and some code for the git commit validation hooks which which check every commit pushed to the main tree. I'm working on it :) but I also have to work to feed my family, etc.. 3) with the above done and ready. a final schedule to perform the migration with a minimum of disruption. So, not only is the tree moving to git, it's getting some needed upgrades in the process. -- Brian Dolbec dol...@gentoo.org signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
