It's time to start something new, AUR2

neotuli · 2006-12-25 18:31:26

Hey everyone,

I'd like to get moving with AUR2 code sometime in the near future. However, before that can happen, we need to know what we're coding 8) . (and I deliberately say "we"... I want your help!)

That's where you come in, I've set up an AUR2 wiki page at http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/AUR_2 , where anyone and everyone is welcome to share some thoughts. I've posted some initial questions you might want to consider, but don't feel limited to answering them. The wiki page also gives some idea of the direction I'd like to take with this project.

So have at it! Let's hear some good ideas!

Crooksey · 2006-12-26 18:29:13

First off i think the AUR should maintain the framset of the arch linux homepage/forums etc.

A facilty for any non registered person to test packages and post results, packages wont be made stable untill officaly tetsted, but this way flaws may be revealled that were missed in testing.

Why have AUR_2, personally i would just improve the AUR.

Try and make things more appealing, the website http://packages.gentoo.org is easy to navigate and very easy to dtermine package states, consider what works with this system?

A level of TU's, say you start of at level 1, which means 14 other level 1 TU's must approve a package before submission. Level 2 requires 9 more and level 3 just needs 3.

This could start of as a simple registration for level1, then just progressivly improve. Maybe have TU's for diffrent x86 and x86_64 (not sure if that happens allready).

-
Meh, just thoughts.

timtux · 2006-12-26 18:45:19

My Suggestions:
1. Give users ability to rate packages (on a scale of 1 to 5 or somethin)
2. Have the same design as http://www.archlinux.org/packages/ .

detto · 2006-12-26 18:51:23

timtux wrote:

1. Give users ability to rate packages (on a scale of 1 to 5 or somethin)

Yay! That would be more useful than 'to vote or not to vote' imho, +1

Mr Green · 2006-12-26 19:05:58

why not have aur repo then let user decide if they want to use it or not

would rather just install packages rather than building them

my2c

timtux · 2006-12-26 20:15:01

Well, many pkgs in AUR ain't allowed to be distributed as binary`s, and it would be much harder to find harmful pkgs if they was distributed as packages.

dolby · 2006-12-26 21:58:30

Mr Green wrote:

why not have aur repo then let user decide if they want to use it or not
would rather just install packages rather than building them
my2c

having an official repo without approval from someone who is more than just a user is highly unlikely to happen, & in that case packages would have to at least be approved by a TU, fact that means much more work for an already relatively small group of ppl.
i dont know what lead to this conversation about a new AUR, but other than having a rating which was already suggested (i'd prefer a 1-10 one) ,or a bit of a cleaning up i dont think theres much to do. suggestions can always help

nv · 2006-12-26 22:31:26

detto wrote:

timtux wrote:
1. Give users ability to rate packages (on a scale of 1 to 5 or somethin)
Yay! That would be more useful than 'to vote or not to vote' imho, +1

But it would also complicate things, because different people tend to interpret scales from 1..X differently. Voting might seem more limited, but it gets down to the main point, which is something like "Hey, I am using this package; please keep it!". -1.

Mr Green · 2006-12-27 08:13:11

ok binary is bad pkgs in Aur a no no ...

So why not just clean up Aur ...

Acid7711 · 2006-12-27 18:49:45

Crooksey wrote:

Try and make things more appealing, the website http://packages.gentoo.org is easy to navigate and very easy to dtermine package states, consider what works with this system?

I agree 100%. Back in my Gentoo days, I loved that website. I'd check it many times a day. Great tool imo. Very useful. I'd love to see something like this implemented.

Dusty · 2006-12-27 19:08:27

Number one thing for me would be the ability to search official repos, community, and unsupported from a single user interface. Number two would be more official support for aurbuild like tools. Number 3 is complete integration with the rest of archlinux.org, but this has to happed to all the components.

Dusty

Mr Green · 2006-12-27 20:08:36

from pacman ? or we talking web based?

Leffe · 2006-12-27 21:15:50

Download statistics seems useful to me, or if not useful, then at least knowing people download your packages would be amusing (or sad, if they are not being downloaded).

dtw · 2006-12-28 10:37:43

Dusty wrote:

Number one thing for me would be the ability to search official repos, community, and unsupported from a single user interface. Number two would be more official support for aurbuild like tools. Number 3 is complete integration with the rest of archlinux.org, but this has to happed to all the components.

I'm down with all that too.

You might also want to consider not only better support of apps like AURbuild but also official support for pkgs built from versioning system repositories. These pkgs are in high demand and even feature in the official repos now. Few off the old arguments for not supporting them would seem to be defeated.

arooaroo · 2006-12-28 11:02:56

Yes, we need to ensure that the AUR is not a web-only system and can easily be accessed by 3rd party tools. I really wish aurbuild was official. KISS philosophy and all that - CLI tools like pacman, great!

iphitus · 2006-12-28 11:20:48

Dusty wrote:

Number one thing for me would be the ability to search official repos, community, and unsupported from a single user interface. Number two would be more official support for aurbuild like tools. Number 3 is complete integration with the rest of archlinux.org, but this has to happed to all the components.
Dusty
Dusty

1) Yeah, I think it's a given that it'll integrate with the rest of Arch's web presence
2) The problem with these is the threat of legal action, it's something arch just can't afford/deal with. We can paper warnings everywhere, but idiots still fly kites under powerlines.
3) Guess that's 1.
4) Yes, we need more Dusty.

James

yankees26 · 2006-12-28 12:44:16

Dusty wrote:

Number one thing for me would be the ability to search official repos, community, and unsupported from a single user interface. Number two would be more official support for aurbuild like tools. Number 3 is complete integration with the rest of archlinux.org, but this has to happed to all the components.
Dusty
Dusty

About number two, that's why I think there should be some sort of publicly readable database about whether or not a package is safe, that way tools like aurbuild can in turn be safer.

cr7 · 2006-12-28 13:13:13

I'd like to access to the AUR directly from pacman! 8)

elasticdog · 2006-12-28 21:18:27

I guess I don't really understand the whole legal worry since there is absolutely no guarantee that even packages in the official repos won't accidentally hose something on your system. It's also given in almost every license for the software that we use that THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND and on top of that we're not any kind of corporate entity that provides any amount of official or paid support for the software we distribute.

If you're truly worried about legal repercussions, make the tool disabled for community/aur support by default and include a big explanation /disclaimer right next to the configuration option that would enable them. I really don't see the big deal since users whom are advanced enough to know they want to use the tools in that manner should pretty much understand the consequences of doing so and protect themselves and/or look through the files and/or make sure they only use the 'safe flagged' packages anyway. You could even make the tool only be able to automatically use the safe-flagged packages and you'd still have to go through other means or install by hand packages that haven't been checked. I think we've built up a great system with the TUs and flagging packages by having them reviewed, but in the end you're still trusting people you don't know to ensure the safety of your machine when there really isn't a guarantee at all and it ultimately falls on you to do the legwork...just my $0.02

Crooksey · 2006-12-28 21:53:36

cr7 wrote:

I'd like to access to the AUR directly from pacman! 8)

+

phrakture · 2006-12-28 22:03:45

timtux wrote:

Give users ability to rate packages (on a scale of 1 to 5 or somethin)

I proposed, at some point, an "up/down" rating for packages. I believe this got shot down, but I want to reiterate my thoughts simply to go into social-philosophy, in a way.

There are many artificial problems with a rating system when it comes to packages: i.e. people may vote down an emacs-based package because they like vim, people might vote up packages they don't use because they like the packager personally, etc etc

I'm going to make a bold claim here: these are not problems, these are good.

What you get from a rating system such as this, is NOT an absolute rating. That's impossible. klapmuetz said once, "people are emotional creatures, you can't just blank that out". The same applies here. You can't ask for a purely neutral rating, or attempt to force a purely neutral rating. It will never happen. What you end up with is more of a "feel" for the community as a whole. If the emacs packages are voted down by a number of vim-fanatics, and they stay low, this implies that either there aren't enough emacs users to compensate, or that the emacs users don't care enough. It's that simple.

Now, I'm not saying that this rating system needs to be used for anything, but it's worthwhile to see general interests. Take a look at this: cedega, at the time of this writing, has 83 votes. Wine is getting better and better with DirectX support. So much so, that is plays a huge amount of games now, and some even better than cedega. What happens when wine, as a whole, becomes vastly superior to cedega? Cedega will sit there with 83 votes. 83 is alot. For the most part cedega will be in the top 10 for some time. There is no way to easily say "wine is better". Again, keep in mind this is not a technical rating, but has more to do with the "feel" of the user base.

Ok... that's enough writing for now. 8)

rivierrakid · 2006-12-30 09:35:31

Id like a choice to be able to view packages listed by date, mainly so i can quickly check out the newest packages.

Perhaps even with a 'new' tag similar to the RSS updates on the AUR front page. Im always finding software I didnt know existed because of the rss update box, todays jewel is freesynd... now lets hope it works.

dtw · 2006-12-30 10:37:18

I'm confused by the litigation concerns too - I really don't think it is a valid argument....abd did anyone ever sue a kite company when they got electrocuted and win?

iphitus · 2006-12-30 10:43:33

dtw wrote:

I'm confused by the litigation concerns too - I really don't think it is a valid argument....abd did anyone ever sue a kite company when they got electrocuted and win?

I don't know, it wasn't intended to be a directly related metaphor.

IANAL, and none of us are. Thus, we really have no idea where we stand in terms of someone getting a botchy AUR package, could we be held responsible for hosting damaging software? Licenses and warnings say one thing, but lawsuits and law may say another.

We don't know, we don't have the legal advice so we pick the safest option.

That's my own understanding, don't take it as official word from the developers.

James.

dtw · 2006-12-30 13:18:08

iphitus wrote:

We don't know, we don't have the legal advice so we pick the safest option.

Can't we get legal advice? Is there no precedent elsewhere - BSD ports?

Arch Linux

#1 2006-12-25 18:31:26

It's time to start something new, AUR2

#2 2006-12-26 18:29:13

Re: It's time to start something new, AUR2

#3 2006-12-26 18:45:19

Re: It's time to start something new, AUR2

#4 2006-12-26 18:51:23

Re: It's time to start something new, AUR2

#5 2006-12-26 19:05:58

Re: It's time to start something new, AUR2

#6 2006-12-26 20:15:01

Re: It's time to start something new, AUR2

#7 2006-12-26 21:58:30

Re: It's time to start something new, AUR2

#8 2006-12-26 22:31:26

Re: It's time to start something new, AUR2

#9 2006-12-27 08:13:11

Re: It's time to start something new, AUR2

#10 2006-12-27 18:49:45

Re: It's time to start something new, AUR2

#11 2006-12-27 19:08:27

Re: It's time to start something new, AUR2

#12 2006-12-27 20:08:36

Re: It's time to start something new, AUR2

#13 2006-12-27 21:15:50

Re: It's time to start something new, AUR2

#14 2006-12-28 10:37:43

Re: It's time to start something new, AUR2

#15 2006-12-28 11:02:56

Re: It's time to start something new, AUR2

#16 2006-12-28 11:20:48

Re: It's time to start something new, AUR2

#17 2006-12-28 12:44:16

Re: It's time to start something new, AUR2

#18 2006-12-28 13:13:13

Re: It's time to start something new, AUR2

#19 2006-12-28 21:18:27

Re: It's time to start something new, AUR2

#20 2006-12-28 21:53:36

Re: It's time to start something new, AUR2

#21 2006-12-28 22:03:45

Re: It's time to start something new, AUR2

#22 2006-12-30 09:35:31

Re: It's time to start something new, AUR2

#23 2006-12-30 10:37:18

Re: It's time to start something new, AUR2

#24 2006-12-30 10:43:33

Re: It's time to start something new, AUR2

#25 2006-12-30 13:18:08

Re: It's time to start something new, AUR2

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