On 12/24/06, Michael Tiemann <tiemann@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Konstantin--how many packages do you maintain? I think that rather than sniping at a would-be contributor, I'd like to see somebody who is maintaining at least 30, and perhaps 50 packages explain how *they* do it. Maybe they have a better way. Maybe it drives them almost as crazy Eric. How *does* a maintainer of 36 packages would with the Fedora process? How *should* one do it? This is the question and the problem to be solved.
I maintain a very small number -- only 15. From my own experience, I can tell you that work spent actually doing something with spec files is negligeable compared to how much effort is spent tracking what is going on with a project, doing test builds and verifying that they work, running rpmlint, responding to bugzilla requests, opening upstream bugzilla requests for bugs filed with a package, monitoring cvs commits to see if someone was "messing" with your projects, etc. You can't script that. If project "a" releases a "point update" to "1.1.2" from "1.1.1," it's not enough to run "make new-sources". You have to read the Changelog to see why they have issued this update (security? rush it through. fixes for solaris builds? whatever, ignore it). You then have to spend a few days just monitoring the list to see if there is an "oh shit, that release breaks something" moment -- those tend to happen frequently. Only then, after a few days, you get to actually run "make new-sources", run a test mock build, run rpmlint against the packages, then copy sources, .cvsignore, foo.spec into FC-5 and devel. CVS commit, make tag, make build. Can it be scripted? I have no doubt. Will that actually be solving any problems? I don't think so. The integral part of caring for fedora packages is the human element -- making sure that you don't commit something broken. Even with all that time-consuming care, things slip up and break all the time. I don't see how removing all "palliative care" from the process is going to result in anything but more broken packages in the long-run. Sure, I don't have "36 projects" -- I don't even have catchy 3 letters to go by, but I assure you that I keep just as busy. Regards, -- Konstantin Ryabitsev Montréal, Québec -- fedora-devel-list mailing list fedora-devel-list@xxxxxxxxxx https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-devel-list
