* Andreas Tille: " Re: [tryton-debian] Any volunteer to update GNUHealth
packages" (Thu, 12 Feb 2015 16:29:26 +0100):
Hi Andreas,
> sorry for not answering this issue earlier.
thanks for your answer anyway.
> On Mon, Feb 09, 2015 at 11:37:09AM +0100, Mathias Behrle wrote:
> > * Andreas Tille: " Any volunteer to update GNUHealth packages" (Mon, 9 Feb
> > 2015 08:40:47 +0100):
> >
> > > GNUHealth 2.8.1 was released which is using tryton 3.4.0. We lost the
> > > official GNUHealth package recently due to incompatibilities with
> > > tryton. Any volunteer to prepare a package for exoerimental is more
> > > than welcome.
> >
> > Could you please point out, what's your motivation to call for this work
> > again in this way
>
> Just for clarification: I did not intended to specify any way how the
> GNUHealth packages are created. My intention was that some work that
> was done previously should not be thrown away. Any enhancement that
> might serve our users properly is welcome.
>
> > - against the pronounced will of the gnuhealth maintainers (I talked once
> > again to the gnuhealth maintainers at this years Tryton Unconference in
> > Leipzig, which are not in favor of having Debian packages but prefer a
> > distribution agnostic way of installation)
>
> Generally speaking I'm careful about "the pronounced will" of a certain
> representative of a project that is given orally on a conference. I
> personally met another member of the project at 2011 at Med@Tel who was
> very keen on packages. It might depend from the time (my information is
> not as current as yours) and the representative (may be the person I
> have met is not a technican coming from the Tryton programmers).
Thanks for posting those interesting links from debian-med, I joined the list
later and didn't have any knowledge ot them.
Summarizing the aspects around the gnuhealth packaging it becomes evident to me,
that there were some lacks in communication(s), that added one to the other
resulting in a more or less unusable package (as is the current state in svn).
Just to be clear (I think to know you that you like clear words) and without
the intention to accuse anyone I would see the main lacks in
- gnuhealth people talking to different debian people without saying, that they
are in contact with respectively the other
- debian-med people not getting in contact with debian tryton maintainers early
to coordinate the packaging (perhaps not seeing at the time, that gnuhealth
modules are just another set of Tryton modules)
- the packager not getting into contact with the framework upstream (i.e.
Tryton) related to questions for the setup of the application in what
concerns the framework.
Those facts added to the result of the communication being later much more
complicated, often frustrating and quite some work having been done to no avail
(the latter not about the whole gnuhealth package, because some aspects can
hopefully be reused in the new concept).
I will try to learn from those facts to be clairaudient and curious enough to
ask the participants about what contacts and which work were already done.
> > - according to [0][1] the moderate interest in the subject
>
> I'm not sure that these links are telling something about the moderate
> interest but I agree that for specific software like software in
> medicine the interest measured in popcon users is low. I personally
> do see some sense in delivering packages anyway and I have good reasons
> for this but I would like to discuss this in a more generic thread like
> this GNUHealth related one.
>
> > - still with the problematic concept of doing *one* package
>
> As I said above: I do not insist on this concept. I strongly believe
> in the Do-O-cracy principle of Debian where the doer decides how things
> will be done.
>
> > - still with the unsolved problem to have gnuhealth modules compatible with
> > the rest of the Tryton suite inside Debian with a justifiable amount of
> > effort to do for the maintainer as well as for the release and security
> > team
> >
> > I am volunteering to do the gnuhealth packages under the following
> > prerequistes:
> > - you give me a number of people interested in Debian gnuhealth packages
> > apart from you and Emilien ;) (please take this from the humorous side...)
>
> I would need to check whether the recipients of the mail to the Debian
> Med list back in 2011[3] remains and might qualify as "number of people
> interested"
>
> > - gnuhealth packages made by me will be in the well-proven generic way of
> > the current Tryton modules
>
> I have no technical background of Tryton and thus I will simply trust
> the people who are dealing with this.
>
> > - gnuhealth packaging (VCS) will be like for all Tryton modules on alioth
>
> +1
>
> > - gnuhealth packages will be made available outside of Debian on
> > debian.tryton.org (the only way to make them currently available in a
> > clean and seasoned way to the users with having the relative gnuhealth
> > suite always being dedicated to the correct Tryton series and thus being
> > maintainable without headaches all the time)
>
> While I'm not really excited about this I admit that this is better than
> having no packages at all but outdated packaging code hanging around (as
> it is currently the case).
I am glad to see, that we share the same notion, that serving our users is the
first principle also when exceeding the limits of the Debian project, because
we are just lacking the means to do it all in our current infrastructure.
> > It would be very helpful to get those answers instead of just pushing back
> > always the same idea, that has proven to not being adequate or even not to
> > work.
>
> My intention was not to push back anything but find a sensible solution
> for potential users of GNUHealth on a Debian system. From a Debian
> point of view through the eyes of a non-Trytonista like me Emiliens
> approach looked not bad and seemed to work for a certain period of time.
> Emilian has declared in [0] that he does not intend to work on this any
> more and has given reasons for this. He also said in this thread[4]
> that we would only continue working on this if some consensus can be
> reached which does not seem to be the case. I can perfectly understand
> this since for a volunteer its fun to work on technical things but it is
> not funny to discus conflicting opinions over and over (I obtain from
> your mail that your agree at least in this point perfectly with Emilien
> ;-)).
Yes, there are few things more annoying than reiterating the same opinions.
> In short: If you think you found a proper way to create GNUHealth
> packages on debian.tryton.org it would probably a nice comfort for some
> GNUHealth users who intend to run Debian (or one of its derivatives).
I think, it will be a good concept to make the gnuhealth packages in the same
way as the current Tryton packages, to provide them suitable and with
bugfixes included for the relative Debian and Tryton release via
debian.tryton.org. For a demo package, that could serve as a base also for
production environments I am leaning to some dockerized environment. The first
step has been done here[0], more to follow.
Cheers,
Mathias
[0] https://github.com/mbehrle/docker-tryton-server
--
Mathias Behrle
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