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Hi, |
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|
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our concept of "Projects" (Herds in the past) maintaining packages has |
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several problems. |
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Which problems do you see? |
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How can we improve the situation? |
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How do we want to organize/cluster packages in the future? |
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|
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I see the following problems: |
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|
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* We have ten thousand packages for few hundred developers. |
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Projects can not heal the lack of resources. |
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If a developer is member in 10 projects, she/he can only contribute a |
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fraction of the "Gentoo-time" to each project. |
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|
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* Someone added the project to a package many years ago and |
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nobody is left in the project who knows/uses the package. |
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I saw this problem for example in Project:Games, where we have games |
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that need a CD, but there is no developer in the project left who has |
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access to the CD. (If you want to help: |
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https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/List_of_discs_by_developers) |
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We have the same problem for hardware in Printing, Video, Sound. |
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|
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* Many projects are too heterogeneous |
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Projects should only maintain either |
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a) many similar packages such as libraries (like Perl, Python) or |
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b) very few strong correlated packages (like KDE, Kernel, Xfce) |
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|
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It makes no sense to group packages by usage as in |
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Science, Games, Theology, Sound, Netmon, Video, Electronics... |
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|
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* We need something between |
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one developer per package, who reacts on every bug within days |
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and |
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the package is unmaintained. |
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|
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* The members of a project are not paid by Gentoo or the lead and want |
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to invest their (spare)time only to specific packages. |
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However a project makes only sense, if all members are willing to |
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maintain the packages of the project. |
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|
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|
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Project Graphics was now deleted without discussion. Have a look at |
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https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Category:Gentoo_Projects |
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there are many projects with the same problem of Graphics. |
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|
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I think we should first find a consent about the following questions |
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before someone deletes projects. |
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|
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* How do we want to delete projects? Vote? Decision by a single dev? |
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Based on statistics? Based on inactivity? Based on lack of manpower? |
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Based on useful package selection? |
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|
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* What is a good structure for a project? |
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|
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* Should we group packages by requirements? (Specific hardware needed. |
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Special skills required.) |
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|
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-- |
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Best, |
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Jonas |
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