Re: Introducing Alioth: SourceForge for Debian
Is this SourceForge as in sourceforge.net's latest code,
savannah.nongnu.org, or the old free sourceforge.net code?
My code investigation fwiw:
Following http://alioth.debian.org/about.php I found the mailing list, but
I didn't see an answer. I then found the link to
http://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/debian-sf/ and the comment that
savannah.nognu.org is "another Sourceforge derivative" (although I don't
know if the author means it's a Sourceforge code or host derivative). From
the savannah homepage for "Debian Sourceforge" I found a link to
http://gforge.org/ and I wonder if this is almost the same project?
It seems that the answer is that Alioth is a customized version of VA's
original last "free" (I don't know how free later releases are)
sourceforge code release.
Some other comments/questions/wishlist bugs:
I see it was mentioned that cvs.debian.org will likely be (or maybe
technically already has been) depreciated in favor of Alioth. I wonder if
this is the case with the debian BTS? I found an example of a BTS page on
Alioth at http://alioth.debian.org/bugs/?group_id=17. It seems to be
the standard sourceforge BTS and not Debian's. I think that an effort to
harmonize the two would be appropriate, but it may also be appropriate to
disable the Sourceforge style BTS to avoid having two BTS's.
I wonder if some of lists.debian.org/the debian mailing lists will be
replaced with the lists that Alioth can provide. An example of the
potential replacement of mailing lists can be found at
http://alioth.debian.org/mail/?group_id=31 but it seems that they don't
yet work. packages.qa.debian.org also provides some development mail out
features. Ideally all of this would be linked together. I like having the
complete index of mailing lists on http://lists.debian.org but I do like
that individual project admins can create lists on Alioth. I also imagine
much of the debian archived lists has customized settings for specific
reasons, and I'd hate to see the lists on alioth go through any
unnecessary growing pains. Some co-ordination with the admins of
lists.debian.org/the debian mailing lists may be helpful. It would also be
nice to see packages.qa.debian.org be able to link to specific projects.
I think it should be mandated that the short names in Alioth not conflict
with debian package names. I.e. looking up
http://alioth.debian.org/projects/debian-package-name/ would not reveal a
project unrelated to the debian package by the same name. Perhaps this
could be done by only allowing the package maintainer (or official
maintainer who is a sponsor) create projects with the same name as a
package. I know there are likely some technical issues with this which may
require work arounds or just a team to implement policy (i.e. delete
conflicting named projects). One possible work around is have "disabled"
projects get created (ideally automatically) for packages and have the
maintainer set as the Project Admin. Another thing to look at is RFP's and
ITP's as they may lead to name space conflicts. Somehow name space
conflicts are handled nicely now for packages and perhaps this just needs
to be somehow extended to Alioth.
Some co-ordination with the maintainer(s) of packages.qa.debian.org to
get links between it and the Alioth pages (project summaries, cvs's etc)
would be nice too. Perhaps instead of just "Invalid Project" requests for
http://alioth.debian.org/projects/debian-package-name/ should also forward
requesters to an existing Debian resource.
To be thorough, I'll comment that Alioth seems to have Project Admins and
Developers. I wonder if this shouldn't be somehow co-ordinated with the
package maintainers field or the package maintainers information on
packages.qa.debian.org. I suppose it should be left to the individual
maintainers to take care of that.
I see that this project will be soon self hosted as is evident from the
savannah page and from http://alioth.debian.org/projects/siteadmin/ but
there is still no clear way to get the code or a separate mailing list or
any information (that I can find) about upstream.
Fwiw, http://alioth.debian.org/mail/?group_id=3 produces
"Fatal error: Call to a member function on a non-object in /usr/lib/sourceforge/www/include/Project.class on line 164"
I just typed it in and wasn't following a link. Sometimes I get "No
Lists", sometimes "Lists are Diabled", and sometimes I get that error.
Much due praise and thanks:
Great work on Alioth, it seems like a great way to do Debian specific
development that used to have to occur on savannah, sourceforge.net and
other such sites. I look forward to using it. Thanks everyone for their
efforts on getting Alioth up and going and thanks to those developers who
are quickly adopting Alioth (I see there's at least 77 projects right
now).
Drew Daniels
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