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{{Anchor|Developments}}
{{Anchor|Developments}}
== Developments ==
== Developments ==


In this section, we cover the problems/solutions, people/personalities, and ups/downs of the endless discussions on Fedora Developments.
In this section the people, personalities and debates on the @fedora-devel
 
mailing list are summarized.
http://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-devel-list
 
Contributing Writer: Rahul Sundaram
 
=== Heading for Fedora 10 ===


Speeding right past a pretty successful Fedora 9 release, a number of interesting developments for Fedora 10 are being discussed.
Contributing Writer: [[User:Ush|Oisin Feeley]]


==== Glitch Free PulseAudio ====
=== Would You Like to Write This Beat ? ===


Lennart Poettering, our resident PulseAudio maintainer and primary upstream developer has posted a detailed explanation of his plans in his blog at http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/pulse-glitch-free.html. Following that, he initiated a heads-up in Fedora development list about pushing this change to rawhide. Note that glitch free doesn't mean bug free especially in rawhide and feedback from testers is solicited
Following this issue (FWN#178) I will, with regret, no longer be covering the @fedora-devel list. If you are interested in writing this weekly summary of the deeds and doings on the list then please contact fedora-news-list@redhat.com or [[User:Pcalarco|Pascal Calarco]]. A short overview of what you may need to do can be obtained by reading the workflow<ref>http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/WorkFlow</ref> section of the wiki. The @fedora-news list is also extremely open and helpful. Joining<ref>http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/NewsProject/Join</ref> the News Project is quite straightforward.


https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-May/msg01244.html
<references/>


==== Augeas Configuration Mechanism ====
=== Is gNaughty a Hot Babe ? ===


Configuration files are under widely different formats among various upstream projects and writing robust parsers in a easy to use method for higher level tools has been a ongoing problem. We all have our own horror stories about some management utility overwriting user comments or worse configurations without even a backup. To address this and related issues, Augeas project has initiated by Red Hat. Harald Hoyer who was recently appointed as a Fedora Project Board member posted a mail introducing this tool and provided some interesting examples on the tool in action.
[[User:Sundaram|Rahul Sundaram]] posted<ref>http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-May/msg02071.html</ref> the results of a survey conducted, primarily on @fedora-list and on the forums, to discover which non-repository-packaged software Fedora consumers were using.  


https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-May/msg00348.html
One interesting point is that CMUCL<ref>One of the Common Lisp implementations: http://www.cons.org/cmucl/</ref> was revealed<ref>http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-May/msg02088.html</ref> to be only available for 32-bit systems. However what got people really excited was<ref>https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-May/msg02136.html</ref> Rahul's question about what to do concerning the <code>gNaughty</code> package. Its sole purpose seemed<ref>https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-May/msg02203.html</ref> to be downloading pornography. Rahul referenced the <code>hot-babe</code> CPU monitor which enjoyed controversy in Debian packaging circles due to its use of female nudity.  Rahul wanted to find out "[...] is this allowed in Fedora?"


==== Taking Advantage of Upstart ====
Amusingly a good deal of the controversy focused on whether the content was freely redistributable, but a predictable moral angle was raised<ref>http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-May/msg02242.html</ref> by [[User:Alsadi|Muayyad AlSadi]] who asked for help in producing a spin which removed content deemed objectionable. Muayyad is a Jordanian developer who has been producing an Arabic-localized Fedora spin named "Ojuba" for some time. Muayyad sought a way to make identifying and tagging packages easier to facilitate this spin. [[User:Notting|Bill Nottingham]] was<ref>http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-May/msg02312.html</ref> skeptical about the chances of tags keeping meaning unless there was some sort of review board. Equally predictable was<ref>http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-May/msg02295.html</ref> the reaction typified by [[User:Skvidal|Seth Vidal]] which resisted any attempt to restrict packages according to standards which had nothing to do with licensing or patent issues. [[User:bochcecha|Mathieu Bridon]] thought<ref>http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-May/msg02355.html</ref> that the creation of a wiki-page by Muayyad would allow anyone interested in co-ordinating work on "Inappropriate Content" to just go ahead and do it without dragging in bureaucracy. 


Upstart was introduced in Fedora 9 and other distributions in Sys V compatibility mode as a means of transitioning into a stage where Fedora can take advantage of it's features better. Now we have reached that stage and Fedora is taking the initial steps to spearhead some changes in a core part of it's distribution. Bill Nottingham, one of the maintainers of the init system in Fedora posted a long mail explaining his ideas on what could be done followed by a long discussion
<references/>


https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-May/msg01888.html
=== Chrome9 Vx800 Graphics Support on LiveUSB ===


====  Live CD creator in SELinux enforcing mode ====
[[KristapsViesalgs|Kristaps Viesalgs]] asked<ref>http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-May/msg02146.html</ref> for help in getting the Fedora Live USB to boot correctly on a machine using a Via Vx800 "Chrome9" GPU. Kristaps had some success with the latest upstream version (from their subversion repository) and asked: "Is there any brutal option how to properly boot X with vesa driver, install Fedora, then make openchrome svn installation? Is Fedora planning to make for VIA graphic chipset autoconfiguration utility?"


One of the long standing complicated issue to resolve is the difficulty of enforcing SELinux policies in a chroot. While this can affect a number of similar areas that uses chroot to do it's job, the current focus is the ability to run livecd-creator in in SELinux enforcing mode to create a live image with SELinux labels correctly set. While we can do this now by running in permissive mode, that is not a optimal solution. This was discussed within the Fedora Board which made a call to action. Eric Paris, one of the SELinux developers at Red Hat responded to this and has been deligently working on a solution for the past couple of weeks. He finally made a initial stab at getting this fixed and explained what needs to be done at
[[User:Ajax|Adam Jackson]] asked<ref>http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-May/msg02154.html</ref> for a more specific bug report because the chip should be supported. He preferred not to ship an autoconfiguration utility instead of just getting the driver correct. Similar points were made by [[User:Adamwill|Adam Williamson]] and [[User:|Xavier Bachelot]]. The latter asked<ref>http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-May/msg02163.html</ref> any interested developers to help out the openchrome project in both the 2D and 3D(Gallium) sides.  


https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-selinux-list/2008-May/msg00169.html
<references/>


While there are still some issues to address, we are far closer to a solution now than we have ever been.
=== Who Wants a Pony? ===


==== Printing Management ====
[[User:Kushal|Kushal Das]] promised<ref>http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-May/msg02139.html</ref> a pony to anyone that would take the trouble to review<ref>http://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=503021</ref> one of his packages.


Tim Waugh, the master of CUPS and printing management in Fedora has posted in his blog at http://cyberelk.net/tim/2008/05/29/version-100/ about changes in system-config-printer as it reaches the mystical 1.0 milestone. As he has explained, the main focus has been improving the way the application looks and behaves.
<references/>


==== OpenJDK and Fedora 10 ====
=== Firestarter Retired as Unportable to PolicyKit ===


While Fedora 9 already includes OpenJDK by default, packaging can still be improved a lot. Thomas Fitzsimmons, Java expert and initiator of IcedTea project has explained the scheduled improvements of OpenJDK for Fedora 10.  
[[User:Maxamillion|Adam Miller]] asked<ref>http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-May/msg02089.html</ref> whether he should just retire the <code>Firestarter</code><ref>Firestarter is a firewall configuration GUI</ref> package for which he had recently become the maintainer. His query was based on the recent filing of RFEs to integrate <code>Firestarter</code> with <code>PolicyKit</code>. These suggested to Adam that a large amount of work would be needed due to the lack of any upstream activity for four years and the need to grok <code>PolicyKit</code>.


http://fitzsim.org/blog/?p=27
Following confirmation from [[User:Sundaram|Rahul Sundaram]] and [[User:Skvidal|Seth Vidal]] a decision was made<ref>http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-May/msg02094.html</ref> by Adam: "I would honestly rather retire the package than do a WONTFIX, if the project as a whole is going the direction of PolicyKit and upstream is dead then I don't want to keep old and busted cruft around the repositories as Fedora continues to look towards the future."
A further suggestion from "Cry" prompted<ref>http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-May/msg02122.html</ref> Adam to start filing RFEs against <code>system-config-firewall</code> for any features present in <code>Firestarter</code> but missing in <code>system-config-firewall</code>.
<references/>


==== Plymouth, singing the death of RHGB  ====
=== Russian Fedora ? ===


Red Hat Graphical Bootloader aka RHGB has been lingering with us for quite a while now. There has been a number of core improvements in Fedora 9 including a preview kernel mode setting (http://airlied.livejournal.com/58778.html. Explanation by Keith Packard at http://keithp.com/blogs/kernel-mode-drivers/) and rewrite of GDM which paves the way for a better method.
When [[User:Peter|Peter Lemenkov]] asked<ref>http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-May/msg02013.html</ref> about the idea of creating a Fedora Foundation outside of the U.S.A. the usual arguments from the past few years were rehashed. [[User:Kkofler|Kevin Kofler]] gave<ref>http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-May/msg02025.html</ref> an able summary why this would still present Red Hat with a problem.


https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-May/msg00954.html
An assertion by [[User:|Alexey Torkhov]] that there existed<ref>http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-May/msg02390.html</ref> a Red Hat-sanctioned "RussianFedora" spin which contained mp3 codecs and other material excluded from the actual Fedora Project repositories drew demands for proof from [[User:Sundaram|Rahul Sundaram]].


Plymouth (http://freedesktop.org/software/plymouth/), a freedesktop.org has been announced by Ray Strode at Red Hat with the intention of replacing RHGB which in true Fedora fashion can be adopted by other distributions too. Plymouth is already in rawhide now though not activated yet.
<references/>


==== Better Webcam Support ====
=== Will FESCo Revisit Kmods ? ===


Fedora has a long standing upstream policy (http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/PackageMaintainers/WhyUpstream) which means not stuffing up the kernel with third party drivers that aren't getting merged in the Linux kernel. One of the areas affected in webcam support. Hans de Goede, a very active Fedora volunteer has been working on merging the gpsca driver which will vastly improve the amount of webcams Fedora supports out of the box. He has posted a feature specification to do this and related things.
A discussion of why <code>VirtualBox</code> will not be a feature due to its code not yet heading upstream and consequently remaining as <code>kmods</code> drew a statement of support from [[User:Kkofler|Kevin Kofler]] for reverting the current banning of <code>kmods</code> should he become a FESCo member. Upon request from [[RichardJones|Richard W.M. Jones]] for a dispassionate summary of the reasons to avoid <code>kmods</code> drew<ref>http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-May/msg02254.html</ref> a concise response from [[User:Skvidal|Seth Vidal]].


https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-May/msg02011.html
[[User:Adamwill|Adam Williamson]] and [[User:Mdomsch|Matt Domsch]] (Dell's DKMS mastermind) kicked<ref>http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-May/msg02368.html</ref> some ideas back and forth over the advantages of <code>akmods</code> versus <code>kmods</code>.


==== Fedora: Prowling In The Night ====
<references/>


Fedora Nightlife has been announced by Bryan Che, product manager of Red Hat MRG product which provides real time and grid computing capabilities. Fedora Nightlife is a community grid computing project that takes advantage of idle CPU cycles donated by the Fedora community to provide social benefits to the world. A ambitious project with hopes of more than a million nodes, this would be a interesting effort to keep a eye on
=== Upgrade from Fedora 10 to Rawhide (Fedora 11) ===


http://bryanche.blogspot.com/2008/05/introducing-fedora-nightlife.html
Following a report from [[UweKiewel|Uwe Kiewel]] that a <pre>yum upgrade</pre> had spewed all sorts of errors the supported methods for upgrades were re-stated<ref>http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-May/msg02041.html</ref> by [[User:Adamwill|Adam Williamson]]: "[I]f you talk to the people most involved in implementing it (Seth) and testing it (Will) they will tell you that doing live upgrades via yum can't really ever be 100% safe for various reasons, but preupgrade can get very close and is useful in all the same cases. So their position is, we support preupgrade, we don't support yum. If yum works, great, if it doesn't, you can bug people to fix whatever it stopping it working, but it's not 'required' by any policy or guideline."


As Bryan Che explains, Fedora Nightlife will leverage the Condor project, which was (http://www.cs.wisc.edu/condor/) created and hosted by the University of Wisconsin Madison, for scheduling and harnessing donated computing power. Last year, Red Hat and the University of Wisconsin signed a strategic partnership around Condor. Part of this partnership entailed releasing Condor's source code under an OSI-approved open source license. As a result, we now have Condor packaged at Fedora, and upstream development continues to happen at the University of Wisconsin repository in an open manner.
<references/>

Latest revision as of 01:15, 1 June 2009

Developments

In this section the people, personalities and debates on the @fedora-devel mailing list are summarized.

Contributing Writer: Oisin Feeley

Would You Like to Write This Beat ?

Following this issue (FWN#178) I will, with regret, no longer be covering the @fedora-devel list. If you are interested in writing this weekly summary of the deeds and doings on the list then please contact fedora-news-list@redhat.com or Pascal Calarco. A short overview of what you may need to do can be obtained by reading the workflow[1] section of the wiki. The @fedora-news list is also extremely open and helpful. Joining[2] the News Project is quite straightforward.

  1. ↑ http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/WorkFlow
  2. ↑ http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/NewsProject/Join

Is gNaughty a Hot Babe ?

Rahul Sundaram posted[1] the results of a survey conducted, primarily on @fedora-list and on the forums, to discover which non-repository-packaged software Fedora consumers were using.

One interesting point is that CMUCL[2] was revealed[3] to be only available for 32-bit systems. However what got people really excited was[4] Rahul's question about what to do concerning the gNaughty package. Its sole purpose seemed[5] to be downloading pornography. Rahul referenced the hot-babe CPU monitor which enjoyed controversy in Debian packaging circles due to its use of female nudity. Rahul wanted to find out "[...] is this allowed in Fedora?"

Amusingly a good deal of the controversy focused on whether the content was freely redistributable, but a predictable moral angle was raised[6] by Muayyad AlSadi who asked for help in producing a spin which removed content deemed objectionable. Muayyad is a Jordanian developer who has been producing an Arabic-localized Fedora spin named "Ojuba" for some time. Muayyad sought a way to make identifying and tagging packages easier to facilitate this spin. Bill Nottingham was[7] skeptical about the chances of tags keeping meaning unless there was some sort of review board. Equally predictable was[8] the reaction typified by Seth Vidal which resisted any attempt to restrict packages according to standards which had nothing to do with licensing or patent issues. Mathieu Bridon thought[9] that the creation of a wiki-page by Muayyad would allow anyone interested in co-ordinating work on "Inappropriate Content" to just go ahead and do it without dragging in bureaucracy.

  1. ↑ http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-May/msg02071.html
  2. ↑ One of the Common Lisp implementations: http://www.cons.org/cmucl/
  3. ↑ http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-May/msg02088.html
  4. ↑ https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-May/msg02136.html
  5. ↑ https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-May/msg02203.html
  6. ↑ http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-May/msg02242.html
  7. ↑ http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-May/msg02312.html
  8. ↑ http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-May/msg02295.html
  9. ↑ http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-May/msg02355.html

Chrome9 Vx800 Graphics Support on LiveUSB

Kristaps Viesalgs asked[1] for help in getting the Fedora Live USB to boot correctly on a machine using a Via Vx800 "Chrome9" GPU. Kristaps had some success with the latest upstream version (from their subversion repository) and asked: "Is there any brutal option how to properly boot X with vesa driver, install Fedora, then make openchrome svn installation? Is Fedora planning to make for VIA graphic chipset autoconfiguration utility?"

Adam Jackson asked[2] for a more specific bug report because the chip should be supported. He preferred not to ship an autoconfiguration utility instead of just getting the driver correct. Similar points were made by Adam Williamson and [[User:|Xavier Bachelot]]. The latter asked[3] any interested developers to help out the openchrome project in both the 2D and 3D(Gallium) sides.

  1. ↑ http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-May/msg02146.html
  2. ↑ http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-May/msg02154.html
  3. ↑ http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-May/msg02163.html

Who Wants a Pony?

Kushal Das promised[1] a pony to anyone that would take the trouble to review[2] one of his packages.

  1. ↑ http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-May/msg02139.html
  2. ↑ http://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=503021

Firestarter Retired as Unportable to PolicyKit

Adam Miller asked[1] whether he should just retire the Firestarter[2] package for which he had recently become the maintainer. His query was based on the recent filing of RFEs to integrate Firestarter with PolicyKit. These suggested to Adam that a large amount of work would be needed due to the lack of any upstream activity for four years and the need to grok PolicyKit.

Following confirmation from Rahul Sundaram and Seth Vidal a decision was made[3] by Adam: "I would honestly rather retire the package than do a WONTFIX, if the project as a whole is going the direction of PolicyKit and upstream is dead then I don't want to keep old and busted cruft around the repositories as Fedora continues to look towards the future."

A further suggestion from "Cry" prompted[4] Adam to start filing RFEs against system-config-firewall for any features present in Firestarter but missing in system-config-firewall.

  1. ↑ http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-May/msg02089.html
  2. ↑ Firestarter is a firewall configuration GUI
  3. ↑ http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-May/msg02094.html
  4. ↑ http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-May/msg02122.html

Russian Fedora ?

When Peter Lemenkov asked[1] about the idea of creating a Fedora Foundation outside of the U.S.A. the usual arguments from the past few years were rehashed. Kevin Kofler gave[2] an able summary why this would still present Red Hat with a problem.

An assertion by [[User:|Alexey Torkhov]] that there existed[3] a Red Hat-sanctioned "RussianFedora" spin which contained mp3 codecs and other material excluded from the actual Fedora Project repositories drew demands for proof from Rahul Sundaram.

  1. ↑ http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-May/msg02013.html
  2. ↑ http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-May/msg02025.html
  3. ↑ http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-May/msg02390.html

Will FESCo Revisit Kmods ?

A discussion of why VirtualBox will not be a feature due to its code not yet heading upstream and consequently remaining as kmods drew a statement of support from Kevin Kofler for reverting the current banning of kmods should he become a FESCo member. Upon request from Richard W.M. Jones for a dispassionate summary of the reasons to avoid kmods drew[1] a concise response from Seth Vidal.

Adam Williamson and Matt Domsch (Dell's DKMS mastermind) kicked[2] some ideas back and forth over the advantages of akmods versus kmods.

  1. ↑ http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-May/msg02254.html
  2. ↑ http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-May/msg02368.html

Upgrade from Fedora 10 to Rawhide (Fedora 11)

Following a report from Uwe Kiewel that a 

yum upgrade

had spewed all sorts of errors the supported methods for upgrades were re-stated[1] by Adam Williamson: "[I]f you talk to the people most involved in implementing it (Seth) and testing it (Will) they will tell you that doing live upgrades via yum can't really ever be 100% safe for various reasons, but preupgrade can get very close and is useful in all the same cases. So their position is, we support preupgrade, we don't support yum. If yum works, great, if it doesn't, you can bug people to fix whatever it stopping it working, but it's not 'required' by any policy or guideline."

  1. ↑ http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-May/msg02041.html
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