[gentoo-dev] Re: Project Sunrise -- Proposal

[Stefan Schweizer]

Henrik Brix Andersen wrote:
> On Sun, Jun 11, 2006 at 06:53:51PM +0100, Stuart Herbert wrote:
>> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
>> Hash: SHA1
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>> Henrik Brix Andersen wrote:
>> | However, as has been pointed out several times in this thread already,
>> | back when the devloper community agreed to the overlays project it was
>> | also agreed that projects similar to what is now known as Project
>> | Sunrise was not be present on overlays.gentoo.org.
>>
>> Can you provide a reference to this, please?  I've been through my -dev
>> M/L archive several times, and cannot find an email where I agreed to
>> this.
>
> Perhaps not in those exact words, I admit. But the general consensus
> in my eyes, and I'm not alone with this view according to other
> replies to this thread, was that the purpose of overlays.gentoo.org
> would be to provide a common place to host project and developer
> overlays - not a place to host Joe User's ebuild contributions (except
> for users regularly contributing to specific teams/herds and
> devs-in-spee). [1] [2] [3]
I think you misunderstand the Sunrise Project. I will tell you why the
Sunrise Project in fact complies to all these rules.

It only hosts ebuilds that have been reviewed by Gentoo developers or
directly committed by "regular contributors" that have taken the ebuild
quiz, we name them "trusted committers". We have not yet fleshed out how it
works, but believe me we are watching the quality of the overlay and we
certainly will not let it rot.
You believe we do not have the manpower for this as you have stated in many
other threads. But currently we are coping well with the ebuild submissions
we get. Additionally #gentoo-dev-help is of big help for us.
All current contributors to the Sunrise overlay take effort to improve their
ebuild skills and listen to our words closely. I would consider them all as
devs-in-spee, I am personally planning to recruit some of them when they
have reached a certain level of ebuild writing. They are all around in IRC
(as noted in the [1]-mail by stuart you referenced).

> You could argue that Project Sunrise *is* a specific project. Fact is
> that nobody at that time could predict that a small group of
> developers would go ahead and create a project with the single goal of
> providing Joe User's bugzilla-contributed ebuilds to end-users through
> overlays.gentoo.org.

The Sunrise overlay hosts many ebuilds that do not have a herd in CC. It
also hosts ebuilds for herds that do not have their own overlay or are not
interested in recruiting new contributors. Herds who wish to work with the
contributor in a different way are already doing that, and we encourage
people to use existing herd/team-specfic infrastructure if there is one.

Quote from the FAQ
--Can I commit everything I like to the overlay?--
Herds could also have a better official overlay for herd related packages.
For example you should not add packages from the PHP overlay or concerning
PHP to the Sunrise overlay, rather ask for access to the PHP or Webapps
overlay and talk to those herds first, depending on where you feel your
package should go.
-------
The Sunrise project catches all ebuilds that a specific herd does not have
the resources or interest in catching. We make sure that contributions have
a certain level of QA and are not ignored. As soon as a specific herd/team
wants to work on the ebuilds themselves we remove the ebuild from the
Sunrise overlay.

Our single goal is not to provide Joe User's ebuilds, we have more goals:
- provide a central home for contributed ebuilds that do not (yet) find a
place in the portage tree
- encourage users to write ebuilds
- find new recruits
- make maintainer-wanted ebuild access and development easier
- work with users on new ebuilds and explain them what they can do better
Those are also mentioned on our Project Page[1] 

> In my opinion, creating a new project with this purpose should not
> have been allowed.
In what other form should we do something like this in your opinion. Should
we be recruiters or mentors? I think creating a project and listening to
and working in the many comments on the mailing lists was a good idea.

> I fear that perhaps creating the project was just
> an attempt to circumvent the policy of overlays.gentoo.org, which
> states that only project teams and individual Gentoo developers can
> have an overlay on overlays.gentoo.org.
Sorry, how are we circumventing the policy? We want an overlay where more
than one person (me and jokey and the users) work together on improving
ebuilds. This is not sensible to do in a developer overlay. We need a
project overlay.

> It seems that the developers
> who started Project Sunrise already planed to use overlays.gentoo.org
> as a "free-for-all" overlay with no QA and policy checks back when the
> idea of an official overlays project was discussed. [4] [5]

You are making two assumptions("free-for-all" and no QA) that are no longer
true. Those may have been true with the initial announcement but we have
seen that the Gentoo developer community has good points and that it
actually works better when we educate people and have all ebuilds reviewed
by Gentoo developers. It is only accessible for people who want to commit
something and it is only fully accessible when they have taken the ebuild
quiz. Sure everyone can come and help, but I see this policy as being more
strict and quality-assuring than what is currently done in the project
overlays currently.


> The security issues of having an official overlay of unsupported
> ebuilds was also raised back then. [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] As was the
> concerns about potential damage to the reputation of Gentoo as a
> whole. [11] [12]
These comments mostly ignore the fact, that we have QA in place now,
everything must be reviewed by gentoo developers. And that the ebuild is
_not_ free-for-all, it is only open to people who stick to the rules. We
are just actively encouraging people to help and improve their ebuild
skills by helping, not giving access out blindly.

> On the other hand, having team/herd specific overlays with commit
> access from a select few end-users (as was written in the original
> proposal) was seen as a good idea. [13] [14]
Yes, we are giving commit access only to people who have something to
contribute! In fact we are no different from any other herd/team overlay
just that we have QA (review), good HOWTOs and actively encourage people to
come to us and get our advice and offer their help.


> I've spent tonight reading through the entire thread that let to the
> creation of the overlays project, and I still come out in the end with
> the feeling that a consensus of having overlays.gentoo.org for hosting
> the already existing developer and herd/team overlays in a central
> place was reached. It also looks to me like the idea of having a
> "free-for-all" or a user-contrib overlay hosted there would not be
> acceptable due to security issues and risk of damaging the reputation
> of Gentoo as a whole.

The overlay has been running for some days and I have not seen any "security
issues" or damage to our reputation. I am always checking the changes to
the overlay and reviewing user ebuilds. Sorry, that needs to be proven. I
am argueing that this is not the case with our current review process.

But you have a valid security point and I am thinking about putting up
signed tarballs of a revision where all commits are reviewed.

> I know this doesn't provide solid evidence that this is how it was,
> but truth is - we hardly ever see an email on the developers list
> stating "This is what we agreed on". Due to the nature of the media we
> tend to have a lot of input and discussion back and forth after which
> a general consensus is found. This consensus, as I see it, is
> reflected in the policy for overlays.gentoo.org. [15]
That is what Stuart meant in his mail - it is not forbidden to create a new
project just for recruiting and supporting new people that are eager to
help. I think this helps gentoo as a whole and in fact helps our reputation
as a community distribution which is open for new developers.

> I urge people to read through the initial thread that fostered
> overlays.gentoo.org as well - if only to refresh peoples memory on the
> stuff that was discussed back then. You can start at
> http://www.mail-archive.com/gentoo-dev@l.g.o/msg09877.html
>
> Sincerely,
> Brix
>
> [1]: http://www.mail-archive.com/gentoo-dev@l.g.o/msg09913.html
> [2]: http://www.mail-archive.com/gentoo-dev@l.g.o/msg09921.html
> [3]: http://www.mail-archive.com/gentoo-dev@l.g.o/msg09983.html
>
> [4]: http://www.mail-archive.com/gentoo-dev@l.g.o/msg09962.html
> [5]: http://www.mail-archive.com/gentoo-dev@l.g.o/msg09966.html
>
> [6]: http://www.mail-archive.com/gentoo-dev@l.g.o/msg09918.html
> [7]: http://www.mail-archive.com/gentoo-dev@l.g.o/msg09959.html
> [8]: http://www.mail-archive.com/gentoo-dev@l.g.o/msg09884.html
> [9]: http://www.mail-archive.com/gentoo-dev@l.g.o/msg09964.html
> [10]:
> [http://www.mail-archive.com/gentoo-dev@l.g.o/msg09963.html
> [11]:
> [http://www.mail-archive.com/gentoo-dev@l.g.o/msg09910.html
> [12]:
> [http://www.mail-archive.com/gentoo-dev@l.g.o/msg09946.html
>
> [13]:
> [http://www.mail-archive.com/gentoo-dev@l.g.o/msg09948.html
> [14]:
> [http://www.mail-archive.com/gentoo-dev@l.g.o/msg09972.html
>
> [15]: http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/overlays/policy.xml
just the project page from me :)

[1] http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/sunrise

Really I appreciate your effort, but it could be much more wisely used in
pointing out to us what is not sensible in our goals and policies. I would
really love to make this project a success and acceptable to you, and
throwing the same arguments at each other won't help in making it
successfull.
Please, please work with us instead of against us - really, working together
is one of the essential parts of Gentoo and I fear it is forgotten more
often recently.

Regards,
Stefan

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