[gentoo-dev] What sort of infrastructure programs/features do we want?

[gentoo-dev] What sort of infrastructure programs/features do we want?

[Kurt Lieber]

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Folks --

Over the past few months, there have been a number of ideas tossed around
about having this or that feature available to the developers.  Off the top
of my head, I can recall:

* shared calendaring
* shared addressbooks
* web mail
* workflow management/project management
* wiki (internal and/or external)
* php support for developer ~/ directories

and the list goes on.

The thing is, most of these are being requested by one or two developers
and I have no idea if the group as a whole wants or needs them.  Do we want
a full-blown groupware system like phpGroupWare and/or eGroupWare?  Do we
want to implement the Horde framework?   Or are we happy with what we have
now?  There used to be a lot of wiki proponents out there, but the verve
seems to have died down a bit.  Do folks still want one?

We're finally getting to the point where we have some hardware to start
offering new features and capabilities.  Now we just need to decide what.

I have a feeling that this email is going to bring a deluge of responses
about "we should have this or that" with little, if any, consensus.  So,
I'm going to be a bit ruthless in this.  If you simply say, "we should have
<some feature>, kthanx" and leave it at that, your request is likely to
receive very little attention.  

If, on the other hand, you really believe we need some sort of capability
and/or feature, then do your research, find the top 2-3 apps that provide
that functionality, draw up the pros/cons in a summary of sorts and create
a GLEP[1] for it. The other developers can discuss/vote on it and we'll
take it from there.  I don't promise to implement everything that gets
voted up, simply because we need to ensure that all apps fit within our
overall architecture, are secure, aren't resource hogs, etc.  I do promise,
however, to give those requests a lot more consideration than the "kthanx"
requests. :)  In this case, GLEPs speak louder than words.

Some guidelines to consider related to our current infrastructure:

* We (the infrastructure team) are responsible for supporting whatever new
  features that we (Gentoo) decide to implement.  Thus, when it comes to
  deciding what does/doesn't get implemented on our servers, a very
  significant aspect of the overall decision making process is how easy
  things will be to maintain.  Thus, suggestions that contain phrases like
  "and then write a series of custom modules to hook them all together" are
  far less likely to be approved than ones that contain phrases like
  "simply untar it, edit two conf files and it runs from there".  

* One thing I consider very carefully when implementing new applications is
  how well-supported they are in the OSS community.  Apps which haven't
  been updated in over a year, have little activity on their mailing lists
  (or have no mailing lists) and do not have a strong community following
  are less likely to be approved.  This is a *general guideline*, mind you,
  and not a firm rule.

* Your participation in all of this is crucial.  I realize we don't all
  have the time to research options, write up proposals, etc.  Fine.  But
  at least take the time to comment and vote on the other proposals that
  get put forth.  I don't know what sort of infrastructure we want.  I know
  what I want, but you all need to tell me (using the process above) what
  you want.  Then, we can figure out what the best solution is for the
  entire team.

 --kurt

 [1] http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/glep/

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Re: [gentoo-dev] What sort of infrastructure programs/features do we want?

[Luke-Jr]

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On Friday 19 September 2003 03:24 pm, Kurt Lieber wrote:
> * shared calendaring
I setup a very simple thing for this by making a cvs-group-writable 
'gentoo.ics' calendar in my home dir on peregrine... Don't know how many 
people are using it. Unfortunately, it's very easy to lose data this way (and 
with KDE, at least, you need to enter a password to open it for read-write a 
few times before it finally works). I was unable to find a protocol designed 
for a shared (writing) calendar in my searching, but perhaps someone else 
knows of one?

> * shared addressbooks
Possibly included in this idea might be a way to get things like 'peregrine', 
'*.g.o', and perhaps other aliases to resolve on dev (users too?) systems. 
Otherwise, maybe this should be added as another idea...

> * web mail
Would this be webmail for @g.o emails or webmail for users also?

> * workflow management/project management
Not sure what is meant by this... any place I can get details?

> * wiki (internal and/or external)
I don't know what this could be used for, but I'm sure if one existed someone 
would find a use for it. :)

> * php support for developer ~/ directories
That would be nice, especially if we get a BT tracker.

>
> and the list goes on.

* BitTorrent tracker :)

> * Your participation in all of this is crucial.  I realize we don't all
>   have the time to research options, write up proposals, etc.  Fine.  But
>   at least take the time to comment and vote on the other proposals that
>   get put forth.  I don't know what sort of infrastructure we want.  I know
>   what I want, but you all need to tell me (using the process above) what
>   you want.  Then, we can figure out what the best solution is for the
>   entire team.
Unfortunately, I don't have much time these days. To look into extensive 
details for much of any of these (except BT tracker, perhaps) would probably 
at least cut my dev time in half, let alone writing up a document for them. 
If someone else has time to make a GLEP for the stuff, please do. Otherwise, 
I'll probably write one in a few weeks/months when I get more time (winter 
break?).
- -- 
Luke-Jr
Developer, Gentoo Linux
http://www.gentoo.org/
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Re: [gentoo-dev] What sort of infrastructure programs/features do we want?

[Kurt Lieber]

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On Fri, Sep 19, 2003 at 11:54:14PM +0000 or thereabouts, Luke-Jr wrote:
> > * web mail
> Would this be webmail for @g.o emails or webmail for users also?

At this point, I would not feel comfortable offering email accounts to
users.  That comes with an entirely different, larger support requirement
and unless we're going to generate revenue from it, it's not something we
can currently support.

> > * workflow management/project management
> Not sure what is meant by this... any place I can get details?

http://www.egroupware.org/
http://www.phpgroupware.org/
http://www.tutos.org/

among others.

> > * wiki (internal and/or external)
> I don't know what this could be used for, but I'm sure if one existed someone 
> would find a use for it. :)

One thing I am not willing to do is adopt a "if you build it, they will
come" approach.  We don't have the infrastructure to support those sorts of
luxuries at this point.  There are enough things that we (as a team) want
that should take priority over pie in the sky type things.  If nobody is
willing to champion the wiki cause, then we must not need one.

--kurt

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Re: [gentoo-dev] What sort of infrastructure programs/features do we want?

[Mike Frysinger]

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On Friday 19 September 2003 20:19, Kurt Lieber wrote:
> On Fri, Sep 19, 2003 at 11:54:14PM +0000 or thereabouts, Luke-Jr wrote:
> > > * web mail
> >
> > Would this be webmail for @g.o emails or webmail for users also?
>
> At this point, I would not feel comfortable offering email accounts to
> users.  That comes with an entirely different, larger support requirement
> and unless we're going to generate revenue from it, it's not something we
> can currently support.

i dont see why anyone should get a @g.o email address unless they're a 
developer.  we're a distribution that develops, we're not here to sell e-mail 
address to make you look cool.  personally, i like having an @g.o account 
beacuse to me it says 'this guy can actually do something' ... by giving out 
e-mail address to any old tool, it devalues the gentoo name.
-mike

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Re: [gentoo-dev] What sort of infrastructure programs/features do we want?

[Luke-Jr]

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On Saturday 20 September 2003 12:19 am, Kurt Lieber wrote:
> At this point, I would not feel comfortable offering email accounts to
> users.  That comes with an entirely different, larger support requirement
> and unless we're going to generate revenue from it, it's not something we
> can currently support.
Didn't think so, but for all I know someone could have donated a bunch of huge 
servers ("we have some hardware to start offering new features and 
capabilities" is relatively vague :) so it could have meant either.

>
> > > * workflow management/project management
> >
> > Not sure what is meant by this... any place I can get details?
>
> http://www.egroupware.org/
> http://www.phpgroupware.org/
> http://www.tutos.org/
Sounds like this would solve the multiple user problem with the current setup 
I have for the calendar... It would also implement a few of the other ideas.

What about a BT tracker? =p
The f.scarywater one can handle the torrents, but a local one would enable 
PHPs to give live stats on them (without taking 5 minutes to fetch the info 
remotely).
- -- 
Luke-Jr
Developer, Gentoo Linux
http://www.gentoo.org/
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Re: [gentoo-dev] What sort of infrastructure programs/features do we want?

[Chris Gianelloni]

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On Fri, 2003-09-19 at 11:24, Kurt Lieber wrote:
> * shared calendaring

Definitely something that would be nice.  If you figure out a shared
read/write calendar, let me know.

> * shared addressbooks

Wouldn't LDAP take care of this already?

-- 
Chris Gianelloni
Developer, Gentoo Linux
Games Team

Is your power animal a penguin?

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Re: [gentoo-dev] What sort of infrastructure programs/features do we want?

[C. Brewer]

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On Fri, 19 Sep 2003 20:25:57 -0400
Mike Frysinger <vapier@gentoo.org> wrote:

> i dont see why anyone should get a @g.o email address unless they're a 
> developer.  we're a distribution that develops, we're not here to sell
> e-mail address to make you look cool.  personally, i like having an @g.o
> account beacuse to me it says 'this guy can actually do something' ... by
> giving out e-mail address to any old tool, it devalues the gentoo name.
> -mike
> 
So if we don't have one anymore, or never had one, this implies we're tools?
Gee, it's bad enough some of you treat us that way, without the added insult
of the name-calling:(

-- 
Chuck Brewer
Registered Linux User #284015
Get my gpg public key at pgp.mit.edu!! Encrypted e-mail preferred.



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Re: [gentoo-dev] What sort of infrastructure programs/features do we want?

[Mike Frysinger]

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On Saturday 20 September 2003 00:34, C. Brewer wrote:
> So if we don't have one anymore, or never had one, this implies we're
> tools? Gee, it's bad enough some of you treat us that way, without the
> added insult of the name-calling:(

alright a lot of people miss interpreted me ...
i wasnt saying everyone who is a non-developer is a tool, i was saying i didnt 
want people signing up for a gentoo account just to mess around with it and/
or be stupid in general.  for example generating spam or bothering people or 
impersonating and such.  i like people, really i do, i just try to think of 
the bad people and preventing them from causing crap. :p
-mike

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Re: [gentoo-dev] What sort of infrastructure programs/features do we want?

[Paul de Vrieze]

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On Friday 19 September 2003 17:24, Kurt Lieber wrote:
> Folks --
>
> Over the past few months, there have been a number of ideas tossed around
> about having this or that feature available to the developers.  Off the top
> of my head, I can recall:

I have currently one feature that I would like to see. I would like a place 
(outside of viewcvs) where the xml files that make up the website could be 
gotten unprocessed. This should just involve some small changes in the apache 
configuration files of the webservers to add a /raw area where they are 
available unprocessed. This would allow scripts to work with the XML content 
instead of the html result of it (which is a lot harder to parse).

Paul

-- 
Paul de Vrieze
Gentoo Developer
Mail: pauldv@gentoo.org
Homepage: http://www.devrieze.net

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Re: [gentoo-dev] What sort of infrastructure programs/features do we want?

[Luke-Jr]

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On Saturday 20 September 2003 08:46 am, Paul de Vrieze wrote:
> I would like a place (outside of viewcvs) where the xml files that make up
> the website could be gotten unprocessed.
At one point (dunno if anymore), the source for any SourceForge page could be 
retrieved via a link at the bottom of that page. It was a simple PHP script 
which read the local file, formatted it, and outputted it (as I found when I 
viewed the source of the view source page :).
- -- 
Luke-Jr
Developer, Gentoo Linux
http://www.gentoo.org/
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Re: [gentoo-dev] What sort of infrastructure programs/features do we want?

[Paul de Vrieze]

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On Saturday 20 September 2003 12:16, Luke-Jr wrote:
> On Saturday 20 September 2003 08:46 am, Paul de Vrieze wrote:
> > I would like a place (outside of viewcvs) where the xml files that make
> > up the website could be gotten unprocessed.
>
> At one point (dunno if anymore), the source for any SourceForge page could
> be retrieved via a link at the bottom of that page. It was a simple PHP
> script which read the local file, formatted it, and outputted it (as I
> found when I viewed the source of the view source page :).

What I want is even easier, just a new directory (say /raw) that contains all 
the files that are on the rest of the website, but does not process them with 
axkit. This should just be a matter of creating an alias in the apache 
config.

Paul

-- 
Paul de Vrieze
Gentoo Developer
Mail: pauldv@gentoo.org
Homepage: http://www.devrieze.net

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