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On Sun, Jul 11, 2010 at 3:23 PM, Enrico Weigelt <weigelt@×××××.de> wrote: |
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> * Nirbheek Chauhan <nirbheek@g.o> schrieb: |
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>> I don't see how these various distros can be made to agree with |
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>> each other and I certainly can't see them using a common tarball |
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>> source. |
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> |
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> Thats not even necessary. They just should use the infrastructure, |
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> as described in my paper. So everyone can easily set up automatic |
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> notifications, cherry-pick, etc, etc. |
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> |
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|
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Why should we? I am *yet* to see a single reason for us to change how |
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we work other than "please use this since I've been putting a lot of |
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effort into it". |
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|
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>> On a technical level, it's got serious security, trust, and |
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>> redundancy problems. |
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> |
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> Git makes that very easy ;-p |
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> |
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|
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No, it does not. The security problems come because you are the single |
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point of failure. The trust problems come because we have no reason to |
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trust you. The redundancy problems come because if your hosting goes |
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down or you lose interest, we're left high and dry. Git has nothing to |
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do with any of this. |
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|
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>> It is extremely important that distros collaborate in some form |
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>> when it comes to patches that *can* be shared, |
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> |
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> If we're doing a good job (my generic fixes instead of distro- |
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> specfic dirty hacks) about 99% can be shared ;-p |
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> |
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|
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I'd advise you to take a look at the sort of patching Ubuntu/Debian |
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does, and then revisit that figure. You'll find it more along the |
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lines of 30%. |
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|
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|
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>> A practical solution to the problem of patch sharing is to |
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>> have a website with a search interface for upstream source |
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>> tarballs, which can display all the patches that various |
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>> distros apply, as well as a download link for the patchsets |
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>> (hotlinked to the distro files where possible). |
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> |
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> Too complicated, and actually would not help me a single bit. |
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|
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Help *you*? I thought this was about helping the distros. If your |
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proposal is not about making our work easier, please don't waste our |
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time. |
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|
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>> Distro packagers are much more comfortable with downloading |
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>> patchsets from a foreign source than complete tarballs. |
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> |
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> man git-format-patch ;-p |
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> |
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|
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So why don't you submit that to bugzilla? |
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|
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>> I know you have spent a lot of time on this already, but please |
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>> understand it from where we stand. We're short on manpower, and |
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>> there's no real benefits of shifting our tarball source; OTOH there |
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>> are major disadvantages too unless we pitch in with manpower |
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>> ourselves. And honestly speaking, that manpower is better spent making |
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>> stuff work locally. |
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> |
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> Well, Gentoo is short of manpower ? hmm, perhaps some should think |
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> about why so many folks are resigning and so few fresh coming in |
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> (at least according to this lists traffic) ;-O |
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> |
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|
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I'm beginning to think that you're not taking my honest advice very seriously. |
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|
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>> Please consider the "patch-website" idea above. We definitely need |
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>> someone to code it up, gather the source-package to distro patches |
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>> mappings, and advertise it. |
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> |
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> Actually, I once had somehing in that area, called "comprehensive |
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> source database", but unfurtinately it got lost in an disk array |
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> crash a few years ago, and I didnt find the time to rewrite it yet. |
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> |
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> Meanwhile I dont need it anymore, since I gave up maintaining |
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> plaintext patches in favour of git. And that makes my daily works |
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> _much_ easier. |
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> |
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|
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You don't need to maintain **anything** manually if you code the |
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website properly. That's the whole point. You get major benefits with |
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minimal long-term work which can be done by a single person in their |
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free time. |
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|
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This job is easily automated to simply aggregate links to patches |
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which all the distros manually publish themselves. For Gentoo, it's |
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the ebuilds; for Debian/Ubuntu, they actually publish the diffs[1]; |
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Fedora keeps its patches in a common CVS repo[2], etc etc. Once the |
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website is up and running, maintenance is minimal, and can be done by |
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a single person looking at it in their free time. |
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|
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1. See packages.(debian|ubuntu).(org|com) |
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2. cvs.fedoraproject.org/viewvc/ |
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|
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-- |
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~Nirbheek Chauhan |
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|
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Gentoo GNOME+Mozilla Team |