[Mageia-dev] Mirror layout, round two

[Thomas Backlund]

Michael scherer skrev 27.11.2010 23:07:
> On Sat, Nov 27, 2010 at 08:23:59PM +0200, Thomas Backlund wrote:
>> Jerome Quelin skrev 27.11.2010 19:11:
>>> On 10/11/27 17:59 +0100, Maarten Vanraes wrote:
>
>>> what are the rules to move a package from extra to core, and vice-versa?
>>> who can do it? will it be done automatically? will this imply a rebuild
>>> for the package?
>>>
>>
>> If a maintainer picks up maintainership of a package  in /extra/ it will
>> be rebuilt and moved to /core/ asap.
>>
>> if a package in /core/ ends up nomaintainer@, then after a "grace
>> period" (1-3 months ?) it will be moved to /extra/.
>> and sometime before RC1 or so, any momaintainer@ package in /core/
>> will get moved to /extra/ as for a release the /core/ should only
>> contain maintained packages.
>
> But isn't it in contradiction with the fact that release should not be changed ?
>

Nope.
The package movement only happends in Cauldron, never in a Stable 
release. If a package gets "orphaned" in a stable release, we have to 
cope with that.

> IE, a package could be in core for one release, and extras in another.
>

Yep.

> What happen to such shrodingerian packages ?
> What happen if this break the self containement ?

Then the package needing that should be reviewed:
- Is it an essential feature that gives the requirement?
- if not, can that part be disabled?
- if it's essential, pick up the maintainership, or get someone to do it.

> And finally, isn't it redoing contribs/main , leading in the future to the same
> problem we tried to avoid ?
>

Not really, since all stuff maintained in old contribs is now in /core/
I'm trying to get a fully maintained /core/

Or do you think it's better to have a single media wich pretty much 
would be a dumping ground ?

Of course one easy option (for us) is to simply start dropping 
unmaintained packages from the mirrors.
Or as a middle ground we could set the rule on /extra/ that after a 
"grace period" of x months, it will get dropped.

Oh, and looking at current cooker:
[thomas at tmb Cooker]$ ls 
{i586,x86_64}/media/{main,contrib}/release/*mdk.*|wc -l
69
[thomas at tmb Cooker]$ ls 
{i586,x86_64}/media/{main,contrib}/release/*2007.0*|wc -l
55
[thomas at tmb Cooker]$ ls 
{i586,x86_64}/media/{main,contrib}/release/*2007.1*|wc -l
71
[thomas at tmb Cooker]$ ls 
{i586,x86_64}/media/{main,contrib}/release/*2008.0*|wc -l
212
[thomas at tmb Cooker]$ ls 
{i586,x86_64}/media/{main,contrib}/release/*2008.1*|wc -l
573
[thomas at tmb Cooker]$ ls 
{i586,x86_64}/media/{main,contrib}/release/*2009.0*|wc -l
980
[thomas at tmb Cooker]$ ls 
{i586,x86_64}/media/{main,contrib}/release/*2009.1*|wc -l
596
[thomas at tmb Cooker]$ ls 
{i586,x86_64}/media/{main,contrib}/release/*2010.0*|wc -l
5989
[thomas at tmb Cooker]$ ls 
{i586,x86_64}/media/{main,contrib}/release/*2010.1*|wc -l
11236
[thomas at tmb Cooker]$ ls 
{i586,x86_64}/media/{main,contrib}/release/*2011.0*|wc -l
22182
[thomas at tmb Cooker]$ ls 
{i586,x86_64}/media/{main,contrib}/release/*mnb*|wc -l
316

So if we ignore the >=2010 and mnb* packages,
we still have 2256 packages that does not even have been rebuilt

>>> what are the dependency rules? can a core package depend on an extra
>>> package? or with a buildrequires?
>>>
>>
>> No.
>> If you need to build against a package in /extra/, either pick up
>> the maintainership of it, or try to get someone other to maintain
>> it.
>> then it can get into /core/
>
> And so, if no one step, wouldn't it be like current mdv, where people will say
> they maintain the package just because someone has to do the job ?

That's a risk, yeah. but if the package newer get touched, it will still 
show...

>
>>> and, more importantly: what is the advantage? that is, what does that
>>> bring you, except more admin?
>>>
>>
>> QA!
>> and enduser satisfaction.
>>
>> Just take a look on many bugreports in MDV Bugzilla.
>> If the report is against a nomaintainer@ package, currently Triage
>> pretty much only can state "thanks for your report, but since it has
>> no maintainer, nothing will probably happend" wich is not good answer
>> for a person that have taken the time to report a bug.
>
> Then why don't we either :
> - decide that non maintened package must be taken care by trainee, as
> part of the training
> - decide to clean them.

This would be an option.


>
>> By having the /extra/ disabled by default, and a popup notifying the
>> user if he enables it that the packages are "unmaintained" he knows
>> he's "on his own"
>
> That's already what the GPL say, basically :)
> ( you have no garantee of anything ).
>

:)

> Yet, I fail to see what benefit it does really bring to users. Most of them
> will enable the media ( because some people enable everything ), will forget
> the message ( because we always forget popup, thanks
> to endless abuse of such popup ),
> and the only benefit is that we could tell "we told you". Not really satisfying,
> and if I was a user, it would not really please me, nor inspire confidence.
>

True.

> We could avoid adding a media by merging this media with core,
> and show the popup when a user install a package without maintainer,
> telling either "beware, this package is currently marked as not maintained, and may
> be buggy. We will try to do what we can to help in this case, but no one is officialy in charge"
> or "we are seeking help on taking care of this package, if you use it often, please
> register on $URL"
>
Could be done...

One thing hit me now...
I've only been thinking of current cooker and all of the old stuff there...

But since we are going to have to import/rebuild every package we need, 
it gets real easy... We just dont import any unmaintained stuff.

That way we get a clean mirror start for Mageia.

And if someone import a package, it makes him the maintainer.

Then if a package loses it maintainer, we need a policy like "if its not 
maintained for X months, we drop it from the mirrors...

So the mirror medias accordingly to all comments so far would be a simple:

* core
   - enabled by default
   - mirrors must mirror this media to be listed as a mirror
   - only GPL stuff
   - must be selfcontained

* nonfree
   - disabled by default, installer will ask to enable it if
     it detects hw that need driver/fw from here...
   - mirrors must mirror this media to be listed as a mirror
   - contains apps/drivers/firmware that are free to redistribute,
     but we dont have GPL source for
   - for example ati/nvidia drivers/firmware, Oracle Java, ...

* tainted
   - disabled by default
   - mirrors are free to not mirror this media
   - stuff we think we can redistribute, but that may have some
     patent issues or other restrictions in oter countries.


--
Thomas