Gentoo Archives: gentoo-dev

From: IAN DELANEY <della5@×××××××××.au>
To: gentoo-dev@l.g.o
Subject: [gentoo-dev] Fw: reviewboard and its bugs
Date: Wed, 20 Aug 2014 01:08:54
Message-Id: 20140820084808.5f78c624@archtester.homenetwork
1 Begin forwarded message:
2
3 Date: Wed, 20 Aug 2014 08:45:21 +0800
4 From: IAN DELANEY <idella4@g.o>
5 To: gentoo-python@l.g.o
6 Subject: reviewboard and its bugs
7
8 cancel the gentoo-python@lists, was intended for gentoo-dev@lists
9
10 The package reviewboard has reached a stage of warranting this
11 submission to the ML. A simple search of reviewboard in bugzilla lists
12 a few 'user submitted' bugs and no less than 3 sec bugs. This package I
13 added initially because interest was expressed mainly by my final
14 mentor and the other (prior) co-maintainer. Because of changes to
15 reviewboard upstream, we need a new eclass and category to cater to
16 certain js packages.
17
18 Now wishing to re-write all I have already written in the bugs, in
19 summary, reviewboard has become unworkable by the developers of
20 reviewboard itself going down the path of nodejs. Enter npm.
21 npm was an unknown to me until Djblets and django-pipeline ebuilds
22 failed due to the absence of UglifyJS and some related js deps. On
23 being informed of ebuilds for this and related deps in the overlay of
24 neurogeek, I discovered they required npm which it seems comes in
25 nodejs. The response drawn by fellow devs over npm is in my limited
26 experience unprecedented. The overall reaction was leave it and don't
27 go there. What became apparent from the ebulds in neurogeek's overlay
28 was that these deps didn't lend themselves well to writing ebuilds for
29 them for portage. In the overlay there is in fact an npm eclass to
30 overseer their installation into the system.
31
32 After some somewhat reluctant discussion of npm in irc, it has at least
33 been suggested that the use of nodejs' UglifyJS in django-pipeline
34 could be patched out to relieve us all of any reliance or involvement
35 of npm to install these js oriented deps. That has not ofcourse been
36 attempted or tested and allows for the probability of breaking Djblets
37 and or reviewboard which I suspect has been written by reviewboard
38 developers to explicitly depend on and call these deps. The decision it
39 seems isn't whether to allows npm into portage, it already comes with
40 nodejs correct me if I misunderstand. The question is whether to
41 support this npm installing packages into a gentoo system by ebuilds
42 essentially outside of portage. This requires an eclass and it has
43 been suggested a whole new category for portage under which to
44 categorise these npm type packages. Such an eclass has already been
45 written, however, that it has never been added to portage along with js
46 style packages in the overlay, to me at least, strongly suggests the
47 author always had reservations with its addition.
48
49 There is ofcourse the alternative; to write ebuilds to install these
50 packages without npm involvement. This would still require an
51 eclass anyway. Either way, nodejs and java script are totally outside
52 the realm of pythonic packages and are therefore outside my realm
53 of knowledge and experience. Reviewboard developers have essentially
54 created a huge dilemma for users of reviewboard in gentoo by going
55 electing to use this js 'toolchain'. While I normally go to any
56 lengths to maintain any and all packages within the python realm, this
57 reviewboard has gone way beyond that realm. Until this, its
58 underbelly was pure python and posed no real problem. Now I have a
59 growing and unwelcome list of bugs of this package assigned to me as
60 the sole remaining maintainer which are now unworkable.
61
62 The real problem here is that there is an apparent keen set of would
63 be users of this package, one of whom is a gentoo dev, who is to be
64 found in at least one of those bugs. To delete or mask the package
65 amounts to a clean solution, and also abandons gentoo users looking
66 to have the package made work for them.
67
68 In summary, because of changes to reviewboard upstream, we need a new
69 eclass and category to write ebuilds to these packages and add them to
70 portage.
71
72
73
74 --
75 kind regards
76
77 Ian Delaney
78
79
80 --
81 kind regards
82
83 Ian Delaney

Replies

Subject Author
tl;dr: [gentoo-dev] Fw: reviewboard and its bugs Alex Xu <alex_y_xu@×××××.ca>
Re: [gentoo-dev] Fw: reviewboard and its bugs Tim Boudreau <niftiness@×××××.com>