Packaging:Minutes20080603

Fedora Packaging Committee Meeting of {2008-06-03}

Present

• DenisLeroy (delero)
• HansdeGoede (hansg)
• JasonTibbitts (tibbs)
• RalfCorsepius (racor)
• RexDieter (rdieter)
• TomCallaway (spot)
• ToshioKuratomi (abadger1999)
• XavierLamien (SmootherFrOgZ)

Writeups

No new guidelines this week.

Votes

No votes this week.

Other Discussions

The following additional items were discussed; see the logs for full details.

• Early discussion on possible packaging harmonization with SuSE.
• Issues with wiki ACLs

IRC Logs

* spot looks around		12:07
spot	racor, abadger1999, rdieter, SmootherFrOgZ, tibbs: ping	12:09
tibbs	yep	12:09
rdieter	here	12:09
spot	i don't see Rathann or hans	12:10
SmootherFrOgZ	here	12:10
--> delero has joined this channel (n=denis@nat/sun/x-dc1122e068355ed1).		12:10
abadger1999	pon	12:11
* delero is here		12:11
abadger1999	Yeah, here.	12:11
spot	i count 6 present and alive. :)	12:11
spot	So, looking at GuidelinesTodo, i don't see... anything.	12:12
spot	thus, i'll open the floor to any other items.	12:12
--> hansg has joined this channel (n=hans@ip32-174-211-87.adsl2.versatel.nl).		12:13
abadger1999	rdieter: What happened to the .dekstop stuff you and mclassen wanted to change?	12:13
hansg	A bit late but I'm here (thanks for the ping Xavier)	12:13
SmootherFrOgZ	;)	12:13
SmootherFrOgZ	ls	12:14
spot	hansg: i had no todo items for today, so the floor is open to any topics people might have	12:15
rdieter	abadger1999: ah, I had almost forgotten about that. iirc, mclassen kinda wanted the the .desktop file --vendor recommendations changed to *not* recommend using --vendor=fedora	12:15
tibbs	We also need to discuss the ACL situation on the wiki	12:15
abadger1999	Yeah, and to adjust all existing packages similarly.	12:15
spot	rdieter: realistically, shouldn't we work with upstream to nuke vendor out of that spec?	12:15
hansg	Well, if were doing free discussion I'm currently involved in a discussion with some opensuse people on synchronizing our guidelines	12:15
rdieter	it's just a recommendation (upstream at that), but many reviewers seem to consider it a MUST item.	12:15
tibbs	abadger1999: But we can't change existing packages without breaking things for users, if I understand correctly.	12:16
rdieter	spot: yep, and educate reviewers that it's not a blocker	12:16
hansg	We are in the process of setting up a mailinglist for this	12:16
spot	hansg: nice.	12:16
abadger1999	Did it get stuck b/c mclassen was going to come up with ways to fix the existing package situation but didn't get back to the list with that?	12:16
* rdieter isn't sure where the discussion trailed off, honestly.		12:16
abadger1999	hansg: Nice. Is this more special purpose than distributions-list?	12:17
spot	rdieter: would you be willing to revive it with him? :)	12:17
abadger1999	I now f13 was trying to do some synchronizing there.	12:17
rdieter	spot: sure.	12:17
abadger1999	I'd love to drop vendor if it didn't hurt users.	12:17
spot	abadger1999: agreed	12:17
hansg	interesting with regards to the discussions so far is that we quickly focussed on differences in %pre / %post scripts, and from there to how we would like to see rpm enhanced todo things like run gtk-update-icon-cache once at the end of the transaction	12:18
f13	hansg: using the freedesktop.org distributions list for this would be best I think.	12:18
tibbs	hansg: I don't think anyone would argue that getting rpm to take care of lcdonfig and icon caches is a bad thing.	12:18
hansg	abadger1999, f13, we are talking a lot of rpm related stuff, so our plan was to set up an rpm-packaging list somewhere (freedesktop.org for example) and then invite people from the fedora and opensuse packaging lists and also for example the mandriva and pld devel lists.	12:19
tibbs	But that's more an issue for the rpm folks at this stage. Do we even know if they have interest in doing that?	12:19
spot	tibbs: can't hurt for someone to ask.	12:19
spot	hansg: you're the closest to this atm, willing to take this to the rpm devel mailing list?	12:19
spot	(this, being the rpm enhancements)	12:20
rdieter	I think most of it is just getting %pre/post trans(un) to work, sanely.	12:20
hansg	tibbs, spot, our (opensuse people and mine) idea is to write a draft how it would work (seen from the .spec file and what would happen when installed) and then when we have an idea how this would look from the outside which is seen as good by both the suse people and us take it to panu	12:20
spot	hansg: ok, thats fair enough.	12:21
tibbs	Too bad we don't have panu around.	12:21
spot	tibbs: yep.	12:21
spot	ok, lets talk about ACLs in the wiki.	12:21
rdieter	panu has commented in the past that he's interested in helping make that (kind of) stuff work.	12:21
tibbs	The wiki folks are grumbling that we shouldn't have any acls at all.	12:22
spot	yeah, well, they can grumble.	12:22
tibbs	They're a bit more difficult to manage than they used to be.	12:22
tibbs	And they want restricted content moved off of the wiki entirely.	12:22
rdieter	must... not... relinquish... power. (wait, did I say that out loud?)	12:22
spot	Honestly, i think we need the ACLs to prevent people from writing arbitrary guidelines which are then enforced blindly by others.	12:22
spot	The wiki engine makes it easy to structure the guidelines without say, learning TeX	12:23
f13	hansg: well, distros also has PLD on it, and %post type tasks aren't just rpm specific, other packaging tools make use of them. I would just hate to see further splintering off of cross distro communication.	12:23
tibbs	Our options are to handle reverts when necessary, to ask for some kind of moderation capacity, or to just ignore the requests for getting rid of acls.	12:23
spot	it also keeps this information centralized.	12:23
spot	tibbs: afaik, you can't put a watch on Packaging/*	12:23
tibbs	Actually, you can't watch regexps in mediawiki as far as I know.	12:24
spot	so we can't effectively prevent someone from adding Packaging/RealJava	12:24
spot	(where RealJava is new)	12:24
spot	nor would we be aware of it until damage is done	12:24
tibbs	Unfortunately that's the case.	12:24
rdieter	Packaging/Mp3	12:24
spot	likely? eh, i don't know.	12:24
spot	but I could see some rather... um... opinionated folks abusing.	12:25
spot	*cough*	12:25
hansg	f13, well since the freedesktop.org distributions list is low trafic sofar I guess we could use that and start a new list when the dpkg users start grumbling :)	12:25
f13	nod	12:25
abadger1999	If we could moderate (anyone can add to talk pages but only moderators can change the actual page) that would work for me.	12:25
spot	abadger1999: assuming that worked for the entire Packaging/ section	12:26
hansg	abadger1999, moderating +1	12:26
tibbs	I don't know what the answer is. I would have thought that the justification for ACLs on those pages would be obvious.	12:26
spot	i dont have any problem with people editing on the talk pages	12:26
spot	but we need to lock down (moderate, acl, whatever) the actual pages in Packaging	12:26
spot	and prevent new pages from being created outside of this committee	12:27
tibbs	I don't really see that the wiki is the wrong tool for this.	12:27
spot	tibbs: neither do i.	12:27
tibbs	Certainly for the kind of stuff I do at every meeting, I don't want to have to learn docbook.	12:27
spot	tibbs: if anything, i think this might be a place for us to improve the mediawiki acl code if it is so unbearable.	12:28
spot	one has to assume that wikipedia has gotten through this issue. :)	12:28
spot	is anyone in disagreement here?	12:29
jeremy	spot: wikipedia just has an army of people that watch changes and then admins lock pages that get into "wars"	12:29
jeremy	(fwiw)	12:29
mmcgrath	Seriously guys, if you have highly controlled content thats important it goes through revisions and can't just be edited by everyone follow a docs process.	12:29
spot	mmcgrath: i think that we generally disagree with that.,	12:30
mmcgrath	yeah, because it adds process and is inconvenient.	12:30
mmcgrath	but think about it from the point of view of another group.	12:30
spot	honestly, we probably have too much process involved with guidelines as is	12:30
mmcgrath	If that content isn't supposed to be open to everyone the wiki is a poor choice. If its so important that it can't be edited by people why not put it somewhere where it can be properly controlled, translated, etc?	12:31
spot	if people had to follow a docs process to submit a guideline, then approve it, then take it to life?	12:31
mmcgrath	Why wouldn't you put it at docs.fedoraproject.org ?	12:31
spot	mmcgrath: because its a living document, not a one time revision drop	12:31
spot	its just controlled	12:31
hansg	OT: talking about my discussions with opensuse, here is the plan / dream I have which I've started my discussion with them with: http://people.atrpms.net/~hdegoede/spec-sharing.txt	12:31
spot	it can (and is edited) by people. just not by _ALL_ people.	12:32
mmcgrath	Its just that as far as the wiki goes no one else is doing that. They either revert a change they don't want to have done.	12:32
mmcgrath	or they don't put it there at all.	12:32
spot	mmcgrath: Licensing has to do that.	12:32
f13	pardon, would it not be enough to be able to send notifications of all wiki edits to the Packaging/ space to say the packaging list?	12:32
spot	Legal/* has to do that	12:32
rdieter	is guidelines translations really something to be concerned about? (if it is, then maybe a change is warranted).	12:32
mmcgrath	then it shouldn't be there.	12:32
mmcgrath	it should be somewhere it can be properly controlled.	12:32
spot	mmcgrath: i disagree with you	12:32
* mmcgrath understands this.		12:32
hansg	I wonder what the FPC thinks of this esp of step 1b (which IMHO is a necessary evil)	12:32
spot	i think the wiki is an excellent mechanism for delivering and maintaining this content	12:32
spot	and also for people to suggest new content	12:33
rdieter	hansg: necessary evil +1	12:33
spot	(if anything, the talk pages make this even better)	12:33
mmcgrath	Its nothing personal but your packaging stuff just isn't _that_ special compared to the rest of the content on the wiki is all.	12:34
mmcgrath	the legal stuff, yes, and again probably shouldn't be on the wiki at all.	12:35
spot	the rest of the content on the wiki doesn't define what can and cannot be done in Fedora.	12:35
rdieter	mmcgrath: re "properly controlled" content, are you suggesting that our wiki is not suited to that?	12:35
mmcgrath	spot: sure it does.	12:35
mmcgrath	I mean, there's more to fedora then packaging.	12:35
mmcgrath	granted, its the flagship stuff but whatever. You guys have the tool do as you will with it.	12:35
spot	mmcgrath: these are the fundamental rules of the road here.	12:35
mmcgrath	spot: sort of.	12:36
mmcgrath	spot: not for me, art, docs, ambassadors, l10n, etc.	12:36
tibbs	I don't recall hearing these arguments when we were using moin. Are we hearing them now because ACLs aren't part of the page text?	12:36
f13	mmcgrath: with the wiki as is, do we have a way of actively monitoring every new page that would be created under Packaging/ ?	12:36
mmcgrath	tibbs: no one asked me when the acl's were implemented in Moin.	12:36
spot	mmcgrath: they don't have rules in the same context that we do	12:36
mmcgrath	f13: we have an extension for that yes, but I don't remember if its implemented and stuff.	12:36
spot	if i add art to the wiki, it doesn't automatically become accepted as the new art for Fedora.	12:37
spot	if i add an event to the ambassadors table, it doesn't mean Fedora will be there.	12:37
f13	mmcgrath: ok, /if/ we had that, /then/ we'd at least have the ability to notice new pages created and edits done that shouldn't be.	12:37
f13	mmcgrath: until then, we don't.	12:37
mmcgrath	and if I create /wiki/PackagingGudelinesForFedora, that does become the new method for packaging?	12:37
spot	if someone adds a list of things for say, oh, i don't know, java packaging...	12:37
f13	mmcgrath: If it was linked to from PackageMaintainers, perhaps yes.	12:38
mmcgrath	sorry guys, but we have a process for creating official managed content. Other teams use it with great success.	12:38
spot	mmcgrath: nope, because we say that Packaging/ is where the rules live.	12:38
mmcgrath	Its totally fine if you don't want to use it but won't (and don't have to) convince me of it.	12:38
spot	and we have for several YEARS Now	12:38
f13	mmcgrath: if you created /wiki/Packaging/Silverlight you've suddenly created live and "legal" guidelines.	12:38
mmcgrath	f13: I can.	12:38
mmcgrath	so can lots of wiki admins.	12:38
mmcgrath	so can anyone in sysadmin-web.	12:38
spot	mmcgrath: you could have done so with the old wiki too	12:39
mmcgrath	yep	12:39
spot	we trust our admins not to be asshats.	12:39
mmcgrath	and it was the wrong tool to use then as we..	12:39
spot	if you're saying we can't...	12:39
mmcgrath	er well	12:39
mmcgrath	I'm not saying you can't.	12:39
spot	i'm not worried about our admins	12:39
f13	mmcgrath: we could also have watches on entire namespaces with the old wiki	12:39
f13	mmcgrath: so that if you were an asshat, we could catch that	12:39
spot	i am worried about joe random who decides our guidelines are crap and "fixes" them for me.	12:39
f13	mmcgrath: but you're saying now that A) we can't do ACLs, and B) we can't watch an entire namespace. Where does that leave us?	12:39
spot	or adds his own guidelines.	12:40
mmcgrath	f13: I could implement that tonight but that wouldn't drop the acl requirement I suspect for the rest of you guys.	12:40
spot	mmcgrath: why are you opposed to acls?	12:40
f13	spot: /IF/ we had namespace watching capability, and had those diffs delivered to the packaging-list or packaging-commits-list, would that suffice?	12:40
spot	because they are hard to implement?	12:40
abadger1999	hansg: How many virtual provides are we talking? A few or one for every current devel package?	12:40
mmcgrath	f13: I'm saying ACL's are a huge pain in the ass, they were with moin as well, I'm saying if you google for reaons not to use ACLs in wiki's you'll find tons of examples, I'm saying we have proccesses in place that lots of people use for official special content.	12:40
mmcgrath	I'm also saying its your choice if you chose to ignore all of that and do it anyway.	12:40
* rdieter thinks we should at least consider mmcgrath's suggestion, long-term anyway.		12:41
spot	i think if we move to a "watch people make changes at will" approach, we've circumvented this committee.	12:41
f13	mmcgrath: in our opinion, managing the content in the same place we manage all the other content outweighs the conceptual issues of "locking	12:41
spot	i think we invite revert wars.	12:41
f13	" people out of wiki pages.	12:41
hansg	abadger1999, I have no idea, not one for each devel package, but I think atleast one for half of all the devel packages think things like (fake example, dunno if this is real) libxml2-devel versus libxml-devel, caps differences, etc.	12:42
f13	spot: are you willing to give it a trial?	12:42
mmcgrath	spot: we have an elected comittee in epel, with rules. Never once do I recall a revert war. People respect the decisions of the sig.	12:42
spot	mmcgrath: people often disagree pretty vocally with our decisions	12:42
spot	f13: honestly? not really.	12:42
mmcgrath	sorry guys, I've got to get back to cabling. You've got the tools, really, feel free to use them as you will.	12:43
spot	we have several years of evidence that ACLs works well for us.	12:43
abadger1999	hansg: Hmm.. If you get a ballpark figure we should run it by skvidal. vitrual provides aren't entirely free.	12:43
abadger1999	rdieter: +1	12:43
mmcgrath	sort of, you have years of evidence that your pages haven't been altered... whether or not thats the acl's or not...	12:43
spot	mmcgrath: no, i get emails since my name is on most of them	12:43
hansg	abadger1999, true (not being entirely free)	12:44
spot	when people try to make changes and cannot	12:44
spot	95% of the time, people are trying to add things they think are "obviously correct", which are not.	12:44
spot	often times, these items are politically motivated	12:44
spot	or things like making dist tags mandatory	12:45
* spot feels like he's talking to himself here		12:45
* hansg can't help getting the feeling he is watching the spot & mmcgrath show, which seems to be family of the Tom en Jerry show		12:45
tibbs	I just don't get the moral argument that "wikis should be free". If the ACL arrangement is a pain in the rear, then perhaps we need to figure out how to fix the software.	12:46
spot	tibbs: yeah, i really don't get that one either.	12:47
spot	tibbs: it has a login/account mechanism for a reason.	12:47
rdieter	I thought we were only talking about "acls are a pain" issues.	12:47
spot	rdieter: well, we're really hearing "acls are hard, why can't you just use docbook"	12:48
rdieter	could be cool, to have translated, nice-looking, potentially printed/published guidelines.	12:48
spot	rdieter: sadly, they'd be about as current and relevant as most printed books on Fedora.	12:49
rdieter	ha, true.	12:49
spot	thats really the point, the concept of the living online document	12:49
spot	the Fedora docs are almost entirely point release driven	12:50
hansg	FWIW, I believe that a locked down (using ACL)'s wiki, as we have is much better then using something like docbook	12:50
spot	they're not living documents, per se	12:50
spot	a much more interesting idea to me is if we can un-ACL the talk pages	12:50
spot	as there is no merit in locking them down	12:50
tibbs	Yes, that could be quite useful.	12:50
hansg	+1 to not locking down the talk pages	12:51
spot	okay, any other items for discussion?	12:53
spot	aside from buying mr. mcgrath a beer at fudcon for having to suffer with our odd wiki needs? :)	12:53
hansg	Well abadger1999 and rdieter have alreayd responded, but if possible I would like a quick opinion from the others to on this:	12:53
hansg	OT: talking about my discussions with opensuse, here is the plan / dream I have which I've started my discussion with them with: http://people.atrpms.net/~hdegoede/spec-sharing.txt	12:54
hansg	I wonder what the FPC thinks of this esp of step 1b (which IMHO is a necessary evil)	12:54
spot	i'm not really sold on 1b	12:54
tibbs	Me neither.	12:54
spot	thats a lot of extra provides to slow down dependency ops	12:54
tibbs	How do they name their -devel packages?	12:55
spot	i think it would be more interesting to try to standardize naming between the two as a onetime merge	12:55
mmcgrath	you guys have normal cms needs, just bad wiki needs :) I haven't touched the talk stuff but IIRC that should be pretty easy to open up if its not already open.	12:55
hansg	If we want to make sharing specfiles possible without to much %if stuff, 1b is a necessary evil I'm afraid	12:55
mmcgrath	I also don't know how watching talk stuff goes, anyone know if notifications go out about that?	12:55
rdieter	spot:most definitely, long term, but what about short-term?	12:55
spot	mmcgrath: if you need me to open a ticket for that, i can.	12:55
tibbs	Again: how do they name their -devel packages?	12:55
tibbs	Are the differences regular so that we can just macro-ize the devel dependencies?	12:56
mmcgrath	spot: please do, ricky or I will get to it pretty soon. I'm working with galgoci to find 16 free ports :)	12:56
spot	rdieter: well, if we're collaborating, we can consult the other before new packages go in	12:56
rdieter	sure, and existing packages with naming differences?	12:56
hansg	same as we, but there are differences think thinks like libxml versus libxml2, sometimes we have choosen to put a version number in the %name, sometimes they have when things were / are parallel installable	12:56
rdieter	just live with the pain?	12:56
spot	what do we gain by providing the OpenSUSE name?	12:57
hansg	I'm not sure how large the list of affected packages is, I think this discussion is easier to have when we have some numbers	12:57
rdieter	being compatible pkgname-wise.	12:57
spot	hansg: that would be worthwhile to see	12:57
spot	if this is 30, 50 provides, maybe.	12:57
spot	500, 1000? nah.	12:57
hansg	spot, people can take an opensuse srpm, do an rpmbuild and have an rpm	12:58
spot	hansg: maybe, i'd wager that things will never be that simple for anything complicated.	12:58
hansg	spot, well there is willingness on the opensuse side to strife towards this	12:59
spot	hansg: we'd need to also look into matching up configuration options	12:59
spot	if we're serious about that as a goal	12:59
hansg	I spend quite a lot of time sharing fixes with other distro's, for things like a simple game which needs just SDL, it would be a blessing to have a single srpm for all rpm based distros	13:00
f13	gpackage.org!	13:00
* f13 hides		13:00
spot	hansg: if you can generate some numbers on how many provides/name changes we'd be looking at...	13:00
hansg	spot, yes we need numbers so lets leave it at that for now	13:01
spot	hansg: okay.	13:01
spot	we're right at one hour now, so i think i will close this meeting	13:01
spot	any objections?	13:01
tibbs	Did we actually resolve anything?	13:01
hansg	f13, gpackage.org is available :)	13:01
spot	tibbs: no, but we didn't actually have anything on the agenda. :)	13:02
tibbs	Going to be a short summary, then.	13:02
spot	tibbs: "spot and mmcgrath argued. spot agreed to buy mmcgrath a beer."	13:02
spot	ok folks, thanks, we'll see you in two weeks	13:03

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