Gentoo Archives: gentoo-science

From: "M. Edward (Ed) Borasky" <znmeb@×××××××.net>
To: gentoo-science@l.g.o
Subject: Re: [gentoo-science] sci team help
Date: Tue, 16 Oct 2007 14:09:57
Message-Id: 4714C33E.8060400@cesmail.net
In Reply to: [gentoo-science] sci team help by "Sébastien Fabbro"
1 Sébastien Fabbro wrote:
2 > Hi all,
3 >
4 > I would like to call for help for the sci team. Lately, we are taking
5 > care of sometimes old packages, sometimes packages that we don't use but
6 > are quite popular so we want to keep in the tree. Our time is limited,
7 > bug list is barely reducing, and requests for new packages are piling
8 > up.
9 >
10 > There are plenty of interesting projects the sci team could start. But
11 > we just don't do because we are understaffed. Examples of such projects
12 > are: grid-aware tools, homepage page renewal, more docs, test-suites for
13 > packages, more collaboration with hp-cluster. I also know some widely
14 > used packages are not in the tree because they need a lot of time to
15 > package/maintain. In my field such examples are: iraf and midas in
16 > sci-astronomy, geant-4 in hep, R-packages, many numerical libraries,
17 > etc...
18 >
19 > So what could we do to get more help: call for new recruits, convince
20 > more devs to join the sci herd, get proxied packages, more overlay
21 > maintainers? (in the past, there was a similar thread [1]). I could
22 > train a new dev in anyone interested, I would have more time in 2 weeks.
23 >
24 > Regards,
25 >
26 > --
27 > Sébastien
28 >
29 > [1] http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.gentoo.science/272
30 >
31 I've been following this thread, and I'll have to admit I'm often
32 tempted to volunteer as a dev in the sci herd. But I just never seem to
33 take the step from hard-core volunteer tester. I'm not sure why, but I
34 think for now it's still about all I have time to do -- test stuff, file
35 bugs, encourage the existing devs, etc. A few more specific comments:
36
37 1. I'm not sure the idea of integrating, say, R packages, into Portage
38 is a good one. Debian has a lot of R packages in their repository, but
39 that's mainly because one developer, Dirk Eddelbuettel, took that on as
40 a personal mission. For that matter, I don't know that Portage really
41 *needs* to have "tight" integration with any other package management
42 systems. In other words, does a CPAN Perl package really need to be
43 wrapped in an ebuild, or could a Gentoo user just as easily install CPAN
44 packages directly? The same goes for Ruby gems -- it's only marginally
45 more convenient for a Rubyist to have gems in Portage, and you'll never
46 have them *all. If you have the developer resources, sure, why not, but
47 aren't there better things the developers could be doing? In any event,
48 I use R and its packages heavily and don't see the need to "emerge
49 Rcmdr" -- R's native package management system is fine. So is Ruby's
50 "rubygems" package management system.
51
52 2. Don't be afraid to kick something out of the distro if nobody wants
53 to maintain it. It's no big deal to install a package from upstream
54 source. As far as I'm concerned, in most cases the only difference is
55 that it ends up in /usr/local instead of in /usr and I have to manually
56 load the dependencies.
57
58 3. I think the distinction between testing/unstable but in the tree and
59 testing/unstable but in an overlay is a good one. As one of the
60 documents says, things in the overlay *will* break your system. I
61 haven't had one break to the point of needing a rebuild in a couple of
62 years, but I've come close. You have to back stuff up and be careful
63 anyhow, so why not have the software available? :)
64 --
65 gentoo-science@g.o mailing list

Replies

Subject Author
Re: [gentoo-science] sci team help "Sébastien Fabbro" <bicatali@g.o>