Re: mentors.debian.net reloading
On Fri, Oct 26, 2007 at 03:26:57PM +0200, Lucas Nussbaum wrote:
> On 26/10/07 at 14:18 +0200, Christoph Haas wrote:
>
> I'm more interested in piuparts tests than in builds, actually. The
> point is that most DDs don't use piuparts because there's not many
> benefits in spending time setting it up. Having a piuparts installation
> working on mentors.d.n would allow everybody to easily test his
> packages.
That would mean getting the package in Debian (with the dependencies),
installing it, testing upgrading to the new deb etc., right? I just
worry what happens if I try that with a package that pulls in 1 GB of
dependencies. How would that work? (Disclaimer: I have just recently
begun to actually use piuparts.)
> Regarding builds, it might not be necessary, but it's still good to
> have. When packages are waiting for a long time, rebuilding them from
> time to time could exclude some packages that are no longer candidates
> for sponsorship (since they fail to build).
Right. But although I used to sponsor a lot of packages hardly any of
them actually failed to build. Mostly because the maintainer forget a
certain dependency. But it's certainly possible to run pbuilder on the
package.
> > > I don't think that resources are a problem: nobody said that you _had_
> > > to host mentors yourself.
> >
> > It is a rented virtual root server with enough power and 1 TB of free
> > traffic that I pay for from my spare money. I think it would be able to
> > do that if needed.
> >
> > I might get you wrong but to me you sound more like "If you are
> > incapable of running the service properly then let someone else step up"
> > instead of "I think that test builds are important. If you agree but
> > don't have the proper resources I can perhaps offer some computing
> > power.". Sorry if my emotion chip got you wrong.
>
> Your emotion chip went a bit wrong, but not totally ;) I have the
> feeling that the lack of open-ness in mentors.d.n caused several people
> to reinvent it (with sponsors.d.n and REVU).
I know that several people have asked for the source code of
mentors.debian.net and I always hesitated because in the beginning the
code stunk and I feared security implications. (Yes, I believe that
security by obscurity partly works.)
sponsors.debian.net came up shortly *after* the time that
mentors.debian.net was put online. And we talked about how to join
forces in the early stages.
REVU was developed a while after mentors.debian.net was launched. I'm
not sure but I think mentors.debian.net was already there when nobody
even talked about Ubuntu. Mark invited me to the Ubuntu conference in
Mataro in 2004 after mentors.d.n was online for a while. It was the time
that the MOTU process and REVU was planned. And IMHO REVU doesn't do as
much as mentors.d.n - although it has a comment feature already.
> Of course, it's not the only cause, but I have the feeling that
> mentors could be much better than it currently is, but isn't, because
> of the fact that it was developed "privately".
It could be better. I just doubt that the "private" issue is the
problem. Everybody who likes to get involved could always join the team.
We are open. So it's really no giant master plan that the sources
weren't made public yet. Perhaps with the relaunch we can start to make
everything public right from the start. The only reason it's a
one-man-show is that from our 3-people-team one (Ivo) is studying like
hell and the other (Matthijs) is kept busy by his boss at work.
I don't intend to be posessive here. mentors.debian.net was invented to
improve the sponsorees' situation. I'm confident it has done that and
believe that way more packages are sponsored instead of trashed. I
wouldn't want to see it perish for no reason. But I'm also not the
showstopper when it comes to changing things.
Christoph
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