Re: [gentoo-dev] RFC: regular project updates

[Lares Moreau]

On Thu, 2006-01-05 at 17:00 +0100, Patrick Lauer wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> as the debate about the future direction of Gentoo continues it's
> getting more and more obvious to me that there's a lack of information
> skewing the debate. It seems that while most devs (and users) have a
> good idea what's happening in "their" projects it's quite difficult to
> see what is happening in other projects.
>
> So - as GWN monkey - I'm offering my services as aggregator for project
> updates. Maybe someone from the doc project wants to help to get this
> information put on the website so that it's visible?
>
> I suggest project updates every 6 months (which roughly is the same
> timeframe as releases)
> Maybe this helps people get a "global vision" of where Gentoo is and
> where it's going.
>
> Any feedback appreciated :-)

<brainstorming>
Perhaps we could kill more then one bird with on stone.

Once every X months, have all herds commit an ebuildish file containing
the following to CVS, which would then be parsed and posted on g.o.

--- begin ---
Herd name:

What we do:
	General vision of our herd

Working on:
	what we are specificaly working on

Lead(s):
	current lead(s)

Dev list:
	list of active devs

AT/HT list:
	list of active AT/HTs

Herd Deps:
	Other Herds we _need_ in order to work properly
	simple example - x86 Herd (as it is currently called) depends on linux,
	complex - webapps depend on PHP, Perl, python, Ruby etc; apache; ?mysql

Herd associates:
	People we work in parallel with.
	ie - all <arch> work in parallel
	   - KDE and Gnome work in parallel 
Herd homepage:
	either a homepage or a wiki
--- end ---
all herds depend implicitly on the gentoo infrastructure.

Now, If this file isn't commited to CVS on the interval, the herd
becomes stale, and is marked as such.  If the the herd is stale for
interval*2, the herd would be considered dead.

Issues this may address
- inactive devs/testers
- clearly defined scopes for all herds
- some communication grevences (easily find a herds direction and
projects)
- easy to 'find' related herds

After parsing, this info could be posted to g.o and easily browsed. An
org-chart could be generated for easy reference by all.
</brainstorm>

<brainstorm>
Have all groups in gentoo be considered a herd.  Including council,
gentoo-infra, portage, ReleaseEng and others I can't think of.

With the dependency structure developed 'from the bottom up', the issue
of where we are going is mitigated.

Also this allows for any group to have their own objective and not
conflict with each other.
Anyone can release a livecd under the gentoo name, just add the herdname
in the title.  ie. gentoo-2006_hardened.0, or gentoo-2006_bin.0 or
gentoo-2006_server.0.   There would still be an 'official' gentoo
release, but I would wrather see a 'default recommended' release.
Because in all reality, there is a different release for each arch.

</brainstorm>

This is by no means complete, just some thoughts that might work.

cat flames > /dev/null;  I'd wrather hear nothing.

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