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On Sat, Jun 23, 2012 at 6:44 AM, Ciaran McCreesh |
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<ciaran.mccreesh@××××××××××.com> wrote: |
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> On Sat, 23 Jun 2012 10:37:38 +0000 (UTC) |
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> Duncan <1i5t5.duncan@×××.net> wrote: |
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>> 1) Fact: Unfortunately, your method of argument, Ciaran, doesn't |
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>> endear you to a number of devs. Some may have the impulse to reject |
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>> an argument simply because it comes from you. |
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> |
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> Perhaps Gentoo should be doing more to correct the attitudes of those |
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> developers, then. |
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> |
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|
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This is an impression that many people get, unfortunately. You can't |
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fix it by beating people up. There are those who speak up from time |
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to time attempting to moderate, although to some extent this is noise |
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in what should be a technical discussion. |
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|
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> |
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>> And if you /can/ get those statements, why are we still going round |
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>> and round with all this? |
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> |
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> That's a very good question. Why are people still blaming the PMS team |
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> for the lack of magical appearance of flying unicorns rather than |
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> making their case for the introduction of a horse? |
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> |
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|
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Perhaps what is being missed is that THIS ISN'T A WATERFALL METHODOLOGY!!! |
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|
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PMS is intended to be semi-retrospective - it is developed in parallel |
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with the features it documents. It is intended to preserve standards, |
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to be something to refer to before finalizing PM code, and to guide |
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ebuild writers. It isn't intended to be a conceptual |
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requirements/design spec to be included in the RFP for the coding team |
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in India. |
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|
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So, the requirement is a reference implementation in one of the PMs. |
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So, the question of "who gets to decide it is easy" is simple - |
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whoever writes and releases the patch gets to decide. That can be you |
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if you write a full PM that handles all the existing EAPIs plus |
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whatever is new, or demonstrate some kind of commitment to maintaining |
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a fork. |
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|
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Face it, there are only a handful of devs here doing PM work, portage |
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or otherwise. I can post all day on the list about how Gentoo OUGHT |
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to be able to do foo. I can post all day about how Gentoo NEEDS to do |
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foo and how it is downright obvious how not doing foo ruins the |
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reputation of Gentoo and is going to kill us in six months. None of |
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this is going to do anything unless I can convince/bribe/cajole one of |
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the devs working on a PM to implement foo, or, heaven-forbid, write it |
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myself. |
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|
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Somebody asked earlier why Cirian is running the whole PMS process and |
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why Gentoo can't have its own GEAPI that will be peaceful and |
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harmonious. My answers to that are twofold: |
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|
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1. While perhaps a different leader might give people a warmer |
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feeling about it, I think many of these issues are just inherent to |
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the nature of the problem - PM features don't write themselves. |
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Others might disagree, and that is fine. |
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|
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2. I don't see anybody else stepping up. PMS is in git, so just |
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clone the thing and if you can convince some PM devs to follow you |
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there is no reason that a Gentoo dev couldn't take it over. I suspect |
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that many would like to see this happen. However, to be honest I |
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think that warm-and-fuzzies aside Cirian has actually done a fairly |
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good job with it as he is pretty passionate about PM specs. This is a |
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big commitment, and what isn't needed is somebody who is going to step |
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in to get their favorite feature in there and then let it die. |
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|
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As far as helping others to create pms paperwork goes, there is no |
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reason this has to fall exclusively on Cirian. The fact that nobody |
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else is stepping up to help those who are new just reflects the nature |
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of something like this - FOSS projects tend to be weak on specs. |
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|
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Bottom line - do I think Cirian might get himself further in life if |
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he deals with others a bit differently? Sure. Do I think that this |
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is the main thing keeping us outside of the golden land of PMS? Not |
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really. |
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|
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Rich |