Re: [gentoo-dev] New project: Gentoo Seeds

[Ramon van Alteren]

Hi,

I'm one of the people working on seeds.
It's not a new project afaic i produce seed-alike things anyway because 
I need to run a large serverpark on gentoo and I can't hand-install 
servers anymore. We generate custom stage4's tailored to our environment.

One of the reasons i was/am interested in working on seeds is to learn 
more about the "official" tools like genkernel and catalyst.
And a side goal is to get them better documented while learning how to 
use them.

Chris Gianelloni wrote:
> On Wed, 2006-09-20 at 15:07 +0100, Stuart Herbert wrote:
>>> Why hasn't anybody even *tried* to contact Release Engineering on
>>> something like this, considering we already have all of the tools
>>> necessary to complete this, as well as the expertise?
>> We have, and folks there have been very helpful.
>
> Really?  Who?
>
> You haven't spoken to anyone that I've asked in #gentoo-releng.  You
> haven't spoken to anyone on the genkernel or catalyst development teams.
> Who exactly is it that you're talking to about this?

I've sent mail to plasmaroo/Tim wrt catalyst and genkernel and how to 
get started. Mainly because he gave a interesting demonstration of both 
at Gentoo UK 2006 conference. He seemed like the right guy to contact.
He was kind enough to provide starting instructions.

> Anyway, I'm not saying I dislike the idea.

Great, I feel it would fill a gap for folks like me, who are in need of 
a repeatable process of generating stage4's or seeds. I also hope that 
the stages/seeds I cook up might be of use to others and at the same 
time hope to improve my own by cooperating with others on generating 
them. They way I'm generating them now could definitly use some improvement.

> I'm just sick of new
> "projects" spawning off without being thought out in the least, and
> making us all look like jackasses.  Is it honestly going to be the new
> "tradition" that every single new project that starts out is going to be
> completely undiscussed, poorly thought-out, poorly implemented, and
> cause us all to look like a bunch of fools for weeks on end before it
> *finally* gets into a half-way workable state?  What ever happened to
> *talking* about something before going off and announcing it to the
> world as if it's some kind of completed project and ready for public
> consumption?  Why is it necessary to even...

I've seen an announcement to -dev which is hardly the world but a place 
where new developments are discussed ?

Apart from that:
I fail to understand the fierceness of your reaction. I was (and still 
am) looking forward to cooperating as much as possible with releng on 
this since releng is indeed a place where much knowledge on the 
technology we plan to use is centered.

I looked at the dev-manual which states the following on projects:

*   A project exists if it has a web page at 
www.gentoo.org/proj/en/<project name> that is maintained. ("Maintained" 
means that the information on the page is factually correct and not 
out-of-date.) If the webpage isn't maintained, it is presumed dead.

* It may have one or many leads, and the leads are selected by the 
members of the project. This selection must occur at least once every 12 
months and may occur at any time.

* It may have zero or more sub-projects. Sub-projects are just projects 
that provide some additional structure, and their web pages are in the 
project's space.

* Not everything (or everyone) needs a project.

* Projects need not be long-term.

* Projects may well conflict with other projects. That's okay.

* Any dev may create a new project just by creating a new page (or, more 
realistically, directory and page) in gentoo/xml/htdocs/proj/en.

The text seems to encourage people to start projects if they want work 
together on common goals. It does not require new projects to provide a 
well thought-out roadmap with stated approval of relevant other 
projects. Neither does it require projects to be discussed on -dev 
before inception.

If you feel in anyway mistreated or offended by the fact that this 
project was started I would like to know why, and if possible remedy the 
situation.

FWIW: I've been looking at catalyst and genkernel the last two days and 
am trying to get both properly setup in the limited spare-time I have 
after work. They both look like awesome tools for what I want to do.

I hope that your view on the matter does not reflect the view of the 
entire -releng team. I would like to work together as much as possible, 
however the first reaction is not exactly favorable.

> I apologise to everyone for my responses to this.  I'm done.

Thank you.
I hope that with that any resentment is out of the air, if not feel free 
to grab me in IRC:Innocenti. I currently hang out on #gentoo-php, I'll 
try and make a habit of logging into #gentoo-releng more often from now on.

Best Regards,

Ramon



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