Community repo (sustainability)

cesura · 2010-08-21 04:50:04

karol wrote:

itsbrad212 wrote:
ngoonee wrote:
I suggest automating the 'check upstream' process.
I actually was considering making that in the past. It's just that a new entry with varying version sources might have to be added for each package. I would probably attempt something like that if I wasn't so caught up in my other Arch project that will be announced shortly
*nudge* Xyne?
If it's a -git or similar flavor the download sources don't really change.

Git versions are nice, but there should really be a stable release of each package in the AUR. Besides, -git versions don't get excepted into [community].

karol · 2010-08-21 04:53:58

@ itsbrad212
Have you heard about orphan drugs? Very few people need them and only they care about them but in order for such drugs to exist, many more people need to be involved.
If every TU used Gnome, KDE would be relegated to AUR. Gnome packages would be maintained very well - good for Gnome users - but being a KDE fan would become a PITA.

> Besides, -git versions don't get excepted into [community].
I think I got lost. I was talking about keeping an eye on upstream when you're just maintaining some AUR packages.
Time for me to go to bed.

cesura · 2010-08-21 04:58:09

karol wrote:

@ itsbrad212
Have you heard about orphan drugs? Very few people need them and only they care about them but in order for such drugs to exist, many more people need to be involved.
If every TU used Gnome, KDE would be relegated to AUR. Gnome packages would be maintained very well - good for Gnome users - but being a KDE fan would become a PITA.

Then put it this way: "If you don't plan on maintaining it, don't bother."
Unfortunately, that's not the case as we have people that simply disown packages or just flat out leave Arch.

EDIT: Also, as I said, I upload packages if there is a demand for them. I assume that there would be a high enough demand from the community to have KDE in the official repos. And if there was, say, only 1 KDE user (or some other minuscule number) in the entire Arch community, then it would be better to just leave it in the AUR anyway.

Last edited by cesura (2010-08-21 05:01:04)

karol · 2010-08-21 05:00:37

itsbrad212 wrote:

karol wrote:
@ itsbrad212
Have you heard about orphan drugs? Very few people need them and only they care about them but in order for such drugs to exist, many more people need to be involved.
If every TU used Gnome, KDE would be relegated to AUR. Gnome packages would be maintained very well - good for Gnome users - but being a KDE fan would become a PITA.
Then put it this way: "If you don't plan on maintaining it, don't bother."
Unfortunately, that's not the case as we have people that simply disown packages or just flat out leave Arch.

I don't mind poking the maintainer if there is a new release and he didn't update the package, but if it takes a month or two for him to react, because he has no time ...

cesura · 2010-08-21 05:04:51

karol wrote:

itsbrad212 wrote:
karol wrote:
@ itsbrad212
Have you heard about orphan drugs? Very few people need them and only they care about them but in order for such drugs to exist, many more people need to be involved.
If every TU used Gnome, KDE would be relegated to AUR. Gnome packages would be maintained very well - good for Gnome users - but being a KDE fan would become a PITA.
Then put it this way: "If you don't plan on maintaining it, don't bother."
Unfortunately, that's not the case as we have people that simply disown packages or just flat out leave Arch.
I don't mind poking the maintainer if there is a new release and he didn't update the package, but if it takes a month or two for him to react, because he has no time ...

My overall point: If it isn't in demand, leave it in the AUR. If it is in moderate demand and the AUR maintainer hasn't updated in a while, have either a TU adopt it or have somebody switch control of the package to someone willing to maintain it. If there is a high demand for it and it meets Arch packaging standards, have a TU throw it into [community] and maintain it until someone else is willing to do so.

karol · 2010-08-21 05:24:16

itsbrad212 wrote:

If there is a high demand for it and it meets Arch packaging standards, have a TU throw it into [community] and maintain it until someone else is willing to do so.

Last time I checked TUs weren't on sale for $9.99 a dozen - that's the whole point of this topic: to have a TU do sth, you first need to have a TU.

Allan · 2010-08-21 05:33:46

Maintaining a small number of packages that you are actually interested in is better than maintaining large numbers that you are not.

I will also add that I think that it is fine for people to only maintain a small amount of packages as a TU. I would love to see 20 more TUs each maintaining 5-10 packages.

@itsbrad212: You only have a few packages in the AUR but they look good. I'd say apply if you want...

cesura · 2010-08-21 05:54:27

Allan wrote:

@itsbrad212: You only have a few packages in the AUR but they look good. I'd say apply if you want...

If you insist...then sure

Last edited by cesura (2010-08-21 07:42:49)

Acecero · 2010-08-21 07:23:15

karol wrote:

itsbrad212 wrote:
If there is a high demand for it and it meets Arch packaging standards, have a TU throw it into [community] and maintain it until someone else is willing to do so.
Last time I checked TUs weren't on sale for $9.99 a dozen - that's the whole point of this topic: to have a TU do sth, you first need to have a TU.

No they weren't... but they do come freely.

Runiq · 2010-08-21 08:50:51

itsbrad212 wrote:

Allan wrote:
@itsbrad212: You only have a few packages in the AUR but they look good. I'd say apply if you want...
If you insist...then sure

Yay, new TU. I think I'll wait yet another year…

Allan · 2010-08-21 08:54:37

Runiq wrote:

itsbrad212 wrote:
Allan wrote:
@itsbrad212: You only have a few packages in the AUR but they look good. I'd say apply if you want...
If you insist...then sure
Yay, new TU. I think I'll wait yet another year…

Why... your AUR packages look good and you have been around for a while according to your forum registration date.

gazj · 2010-08-21 09:21:46

Well this is interesting. In 3 years of using Arch I never knew you could apply to be a TU. (ooh my wife has just bought in a sauusage sandwich for my breakfast at work! Hmm.) I thought you were asked on your AUR / Community contributions and then gladly accepted and was quite flattered to be asked. The method of applying should be made more public and no doubt you will be swamped with TU applications.

Last edited by gazj (2010-08-21 09:22:44)

Allan · 2010-08-21 09:26:39

Some of us do ask people we consider to be good for the "job". But it has always been an apply and vote procedure since the very beginning.

olvar · 2010-08-21 09:29:34

What happened with this "junior maintainer mentor scheme" (or what ever it was called)? Is giving any results?
Something I think could be of use, is to give more information about what can be done. For some time I've been longing to participate more actively, but all the packages I need are already either on the repos or the AUR, and I don't have the need to follow mainstream of any package. But I could! I only don't know where to start.

Maybe if there were a page with a list of packages that require help maintaining. If that exists maybe promoting it a bit more, so it would be easier to say "well, I could do that".

Inxsible · 2010-08-21 09:33:53

Allan wrote:

Some of us do ask people we consider to be good for the "job". But it has always been an apply and vote procedure since the very beginning.

and it was listed in the wiki somewhere. I thought it was the TU Guidelines or the AUR User guidelines, but now I can't seem to find it.

Inxsible · 2010-08-21 09:37:30

olvar wrote:

.... But I could! I only don't know where to start.
Maybe if there were a page with a list of packages that require help maintaining. If that exists maybe promoting it a bit more, so it would be easier to say "well, I could do that".

But there is such a page. Go to AUR and then search for all orphans. Select some packages and start maintaining

Allan · 2010-08-21 09:41:07

I think there are a total of four junior devs on board at the moment. There were more good candidates but not enough mentors. I did push quite a few applicants towards becoming a TU but only a couple ever applied so I am not sure how dedicated some people were about helping Arch...

Anyway, there have been postings in the past on the arch-dev-public mailing list about areas that we wanted help with. There was little response. From memory, an XFCE maintainer would be nice...

jasonwryan · 2010-08-21 09:41:19

Trusted User By-laws: http://aur.archlinux.org/trusted-user/TUbylaws.html

Acecero · 2010-08-21 09:41:30

olvar wrote:

What happened with this "junior maintainer mentor scheme" (or what ever it was called)? Is giving any results?

You mean the Junior Developer Mentor Scheme? It didn't look like it was going anywhere.

Last edited by Acecero (2010-08-21 09:42:20)

karol · 2010-08-21 11:29:20

Acecero wrote:

olvar wrote:
What happened with this "junior maintainer mentor scheme" (or what ever it was called)? Is giving any results?
You mean the Junior Developer Mentor Scheme? It didn't look like it was going anywhere.

But the discussion moved away from the forums (and public eye). Oh, Junior Developer, where are thou?

olvar · 2010-08-21 13:19:01

Inxsible wrote:

But there is such a page. Go to AUR and then search for all orphans. Select some packages and start maintaining

Of course you can do that, but I was thinking in a more centralized way, so you know the package you are picking is really needed and is not repeated, or have "sibling" packages that do the same but with just a couple of different compile options, has been deprecated, or whatever.
When you are already on top of it, of course this is trivial to know, but can be an issue for a starter.

But maybe it's just me being too lazy

karol · 2010-08-21 13:45:10

olvar wrote:

Inxsible wrote:
But there is such a page. Go to AUR and then search for all orphans. Select some packages and start maintaining
Of course you can do that, but I was thinking in a more centralized way, so you know the package you are picking is really needed and is not repeated, or have "sibling" packages that do the same but with just a couple of different compile options, has been deprecated, or whatever.
When you are already on top of it, of course this is trivial to know, but can be an issue for a starter.
But maybe it's just me being too lazy

Check in the repos, if there's already package xyz. If there's none, check in the AUR. AUR *is* the place for different versions: mplayer-minimal, mplayer-mt, mplayer-washer-dryer etc.
We have one page for AUR packages, so it doesn't get more centralized than that.

marfig · 2010-08-21 13:50:19

I don't know olvar. I'm not sure you are being lazy.
There really seems to not exist a clear path to TU, neither much active and regular information on it. And attempts to draw people onto the Community seem to be essentially an invidual non-concerted effort by some TUs or developers.

No attempt at advertising
No clear information
AUR success

All probably conspire to make people simply not bother with it much. It's a bit like "let someone else do it", and only when they see their favorite package drop to AUR, will they complain. Well... dunno about anyone else, but i'd rather see a package in AUR than a package in Community that isn't even used by its maintainer; simply because "people complain when a package becomes orphaned".

But I do understand the necessity of it all. I'm basically just complaining Winter is cold and I don't like heavy clothes. It's true, but we need the Winter and it's not just going away because I don't like it.

Instead I'm pleased to learn that indeed there's a general consensus that things could be better. That an increase in TUs and less packages per TU would be great. However, don't expect to motivate people in greater numbers without some concrete, well advertised, and concerted actions. Acknowledging the community in general is insensitive to the possibility of applying for TU seems correct to me, from what you folks are saying here. But I'm telling you, so is the fact you aren't doing much for it either.

karol · 2010-08-21 14:00:54

marfig wrote:

I don't know olvar. I'm not sure you are being lazy.
There really seems to not exist a clear path to TU, neither much active and regular information on it. And attempts to draw people onto the Community seem to be essentially an invidual non-concerted effort by some TUs or developers.
No attempt at advertising
No clear information
AUR success
All probably conspire to make people simply not bother with it much. It's a bit like "let someone else do it", and only when they see their favorite package drop to AUR, will they complain. Well... dunno about anyone else, but i'd rather see a package in AUR than a package in Community that isn't even used by its maintainer; simply because "people complain when a package becomes orphaned".
But I do understand the necessity of it all. I'm basically just complaining Winter is cold and I don't like heavy clothes. It's true, but we need the Winter and it's not just going away because I don't like it.
Instead I'm pleased to learn that indeed there's a general consensus that things could be better. That an increase in TUs and less packages per TU would be great. However, don't expect to motivate people in greater numbers without some concrete, well advertised, and concerted actions. Acknowledging the community in general is insensitive to the possibility of applying for TU seems correct to me, from what you folks are saying here. But I'm telling you, so is the fact you aren't doing much for it either.

Warning: rant ahead!
Excuse me, I know I'm nuts, I mean, I'm using Arch to start with, I can read and I can use the search function. If I want sth, I google, I check the wiki, I ask on the forums or the ML.
I think you call this a proactive behavior; that means that I care for sth enough to bother searching / asking. Maybe because I'm not used to advertising, I don't see the need for it. Maybe it's because I tend to familiarize myself with things from cover to cover.

As most people are interested in how to correctly install and run Arch, the beginners' guide is on the front wiki page, and 'how to become a TU' isn't.

marfig · 2010-08-21 14:34:46

Karol, calm down. If all it takes is a bit of direct criticism to inflame you, I suggest you don't read. Don't be so defensive. It's not that I'm accusing anyone of being irresponsible or incompetent. Let me make this clearer to you, so you hopefully get the meaning:

If I download a package from [Community] and that package installs a broken version of the software because the TU doesn't use the actual program and wasn't aware of upstream changes that required changes in ABS, the Arch Way "contract" is broken; Simplicity without unnecessary additions, modifications, or complications. And if then I'm the one that has to go hunt down the problem, subscribe to upstream mailing lists, and ask around until an answer is given, publish the answer on Arch bug report and hope for a fix, this is an even greater problem. If you or anyone else doesn't see a problem with this, then quite frankly Community is not a repo for me. I'll rather roll out my own builds.

And contrary to what you are thinking, this is NOT an accusation. It doesn't take me a large forehead to add 2 and 2 and realize that Arch, being one of the best distros out there, didn't get this far on the back of incompetent or undedicated people. Neither it takes me much to realize the excellent work performed by the TUs (all of them!). The problem has been identified already. Too few TUs. And this is leading to some, or all of them, to currently maintain packages they don't even use.

Arch Linux

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Re: Community repo (sustainability)

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