help for packagers (was: Re: FOSDEM Aftermath - the Hotel / Notes from preparing and giving my talk)

[Lars Sonchocky-Helldorf]

Again, answering several mails at once


Von: "Riccardo Mottola" <multix@ngi.it>
Datum: 21. Februar 2009 13:29:02 MEZ

> That is a "historic" problem: people that continue to care about  
> Debian packages and check them are needed. Those people should also  
> report back possible problems to the authors. Having stuff in the  
> debian bug tracker is not that big of help for "upstream" as they  
> call it.

> Well, here there are many choices and I would on purpose not deal  
> too much with it if not with a good guide: if you compile from  
> sources you are a developer: if you don't know how to use  
> configure, make and sudo, then sorry, I'm not interested in helping  
> you, really. This holds of course when packages are well done.



Von: David Chisnall <theraven@sucs.org>
Datum: 21. Februar 2009 14:25:13 MEZ

> On 21 Feb 2009, at 13:15, Nicola Pero wrote:
> > That is a good point.  We could do better in this area.  Btw, I  
> > think the lack of a ./configure stage is good, the problem is the  
> > lack of feedback
> > on what libraries or packages you need. ;-)
>
> This is one area where we could really help packagers out.   
> Currently, we have a lot of GNUmakefiles with lines manually  
> invoking pkg-config.  It would be really nice if:
>
> - GNUstep-make automatically generated .pc files.
> - GNUstep-make had a way of specifying a list of dependencies (or,  
> ideally, a plist or similar containing the minimum and, optionally  
> maximum, supported versions).
>
> This should automatically get the required flags for the compiler  
> and linker, and should ideally be easily parsable by third-party  
> tools so that packages can translate it into whatever form they need.
>
> Currently we put this information in the README file, which is  
> entirely the wrong place for it.



Von: Markus Hitter <mah@jump-ing.de>
Datum: 21. Februar 2009 20:59:03 MEZ

> I tried to improve on this one by getting weekly updated gnustep  
> packages into life - Ubuntu even offers the build environment  
> needed - but gave up after several evenings as crafting Debian  
> packages and getting them into Ubuntu's PPA (Personal Package  
> Archive) is really a science on it's own. I hope I can pick this up  
> again soon.



Von: "geroldr@bluewin.ch" <geroldr@bluewin.ch>
Datum: 24. Februar 2009 03:10:20 MEZ

> We definitely need to make it easier for newcomers to get started.
>
> Can we make a Debian package directly from the Makefile? This would  
> be great for not only Debian but Ubuntu users as
> well.


I think we agree that to make GNUstep easily accessible for a broad  
audience we must rely on Linux (and BSD) Distribution packagers to  
include GNUstep into their distribution. While one might think that  
packagers are similar to developers in knowledge regarding tools like  
configure, make and sudo, we should not forget that GNUstep has its  
"peculiarities" that makes it quite different from the usual "average  
joe package". Packagers might not know this (one clue here is the  
usual reluctance and the lack of understanding for instance our file  
layout receives). I think we need to address them more directly, we  
need to improve communication with packagers, explain things to them  
(comprehensible).

I, for instance, read very seldom request for help from packagers at  
gnustep-discuss. Yes, we even have a special mailing list for  
packagers - gnustep-packagers@gna.org  - but https://mail.gna.org/ 
public/gnustep-packagers/ is rather empty and well hidden under "Get  
Help" > "Email lists for developing GNUstep" - the packagers might  
not be aware of our mailing list. Then again I found the following  
when looking for GNUstep on CentOS:

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=459210

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=475852

which tells the story of some severely confused packagers in  
desperate need for guidance, but it also exposes issues we are not  
aware of (missing licenses, the naming of the pl tool …)


my proposal:

- as a first measure we should include a PACKAGERS.readme file into  
each core package (make, base, gui and back) which:
* contains a pointer to gnustep-packagers@gna.org and discuss- 
gnustep@gnu.org
* contains a pointer to our bug reporting system (with the hint to  
report bugs "upstream")
* explains some basic concepts about the respective package
* gives some helpful hints
* what else?

- packagers should get a better presence at our web site, preferably  
an own page under http://www.gnustep.org/packagers/
* this page should get a navigation menu entry "Packagers" directly  
under the "Developers" entry at our front page (I think that "Report  
bugs" should also be linked directly from the front page and not be  
hidden under "Developers" but that's another issue)
* we should list resources for packaging there
* everything in the PACKAGERS.readme should also be there
* maybe the bug reporter with category "packaging" preselected can be  
directly linked from there:

http://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/index.php? 
go_report=Apply&group=gnustep&func=browse&status_id=1&resolution_id=0&as 
signed_to=0&category_id=112


regards,

        Lars