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On Mon, Mar 28, 2011 at 1:47 AM, Alec Warner <antarus@g.o> wrote: |
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> On Sun, Mar 27, 2011 at 7:40 PM, Nirbheek Chauhan <nirbheek@g.o> wrote: |
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>> Sure, that's the history. But what made sense back then doesn't make |
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>> sense now. Back then we didn't have 600+ packages that no one |
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>> maintains, and whose bugs go almost entirely unread. We had crazy |
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>> amounts of manpower back then. |
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> |
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> We probably had more than 600 unmaintained packages because no one was |
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> removing dead packages from the tree. I also dispute your manpower |
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> logic. Gentoo has been short on developers for years. I don't see |
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> how 2011 is any different than 2007 in this aspect. |
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> |
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The current problem is burnt-out or semi-active devs who commit |
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occasionally, but aren't able to help with any herd-related work |
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because they're out of touch. As such, their presence in the team |
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gives a false indication of strength. This problem was much less |
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severe in 2007 (afair). |
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>> |
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>> As we evolve, the responsibilities of the different parts of Gentoo |
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>> also evolve. As such, the tree-cleaners project has evolved, and if |
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>> the team isn't allowed to clean the tree, then why do we even have it |
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>> anymore? |
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> |
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> The community got pissed when I deleted unmaintained packages from the |
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> tree 'just because it was unmaintained.' Thats why there were a set |
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> of criteria for removal. Maybe they changed their mind and you can |
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> convince them. |
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Well, I bet that more than half of them retired or stopped being active. |
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> Ignoring people's opinions because they are whiners |
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> and you are Treecleaners is a thin edge to walk though; so I'd be |
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> careful. |
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> At least during my tenure there were still hundreds of |
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> unmaintained and broken packages; so I didn't much care about |
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> unmaintained but working stuff (since there was plenty of work to do.) |
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> I would argue the tree is still in a similar state. |
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> |
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The fun part is that we really don't even know in what state those |
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packages are w.r.t. runtime issues. I know that deigo's tinderbox |
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keeps track of compile-time issues *extremely* well, but we have zero |
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runtime testing. |
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>> I really don't understand *why* people want to keep around |
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>> unmaintained packages. If a package is not maintained, we should come |
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>> up and say it outright. Trying to maintain the illusion of maintenance |
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>> is really bad — for each person reporting a bug about a package, 100 |
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>> people who got that same bug don't report it at all. So what happens |
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>> when there are just 50 users for some packages? Half the time we won't |
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>> even know that one of them is broken[1]. The rest of the time, users |
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>> will get a bad impression of Gentoo saying "Man, half the packages |
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>> don't even work". |
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> |
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> Properly tagged I don't think there is any illusion. |
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> Maintainer-needed is maintainer-needed after all. |
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The problem is that from the PoV of the user, everything in the tree |
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is "official". After all, that's how all the distros function. |
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> So launch gstats and get usage numbers. If no one is using a package |
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> that is a keen indicator it can be punted; however no one will get off |
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> their ass and get more data to back anything up (myself included...) |
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If we launch gstats *today*, it'll take us at least a long time before |
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we get decent numbers, and even after that, those numbers will be |
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biased towards those people who are really active in following Gentoo |
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news and developments. Unlike Firefox's usage stats, we have no way of |
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prompting pre-existing gentoo installations with a "Do want to take |
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part in gstats?" question. |
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> All of your points above assume we have a decent metric of 'how many |
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> users a package has' and about the only way we know that is when users |
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> file bugs for it (version bump, bug, feature req, etc..) |
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> |
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Yes. But we have another (more reliable) way: p.mask it and wait for |
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people to complain. |
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>> |
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>> We all like to boast about how gentoo has 15,000 packages, but we |
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>> neglect to mention that more than 1000 of these are either |
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>> unmaintained or very poorly maintained. And this is a very |
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>> conservative number. |
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> |
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> But again this is all made up...m-n was 670-odd packages last I |
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> checked. Do we still have m-w these days? |
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> |
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"very poorly" meant "maintainers ignoring bugs for years", or empty |
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herds. We have plenty of both. |
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-- |
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~Nirbheek Chauhan |
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|
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Gentoo GNOME+Mozilla Team |
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