From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from lists.gentoo.org ([140.105.134.102] helo=robin.gentoo.org) by nuthatch.gentoo.org with esmtp (Exim 4.54) id 1ElGCm-00070F-7J for garchives@archives.gentoo.org; Sun, 11 Dec 2005 01:40:49 +0000 Received: from robin.gentoo.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by robin.gentoo.org (8.13.5/8.13.5) with SMTP id jBB1dVBs022977; Sun, 11 Dec 2005 01:39:31 GMT Received: from smtp.gentoo.org (smtp.gentoo.org [134.68.220.30]) by robin.gentoo.org (8.13.5/8.13.5) with ESMTP id jBB1aGt9026985 for ; Sun, 11 Dec 2005 01:36:17 GMT Received: from 82-41-57-20.cable.ubr08.edin.blueyonder.co.uk ([82.41.57.20] helo=snowdrop.home) by smtp.gentoo.org with esmtpa (Exim 4.54) id 1ElG89-0002yZ-C4; Sun, 11 Dec 2005 01:36:02 +0000 Received: from localhost.home ([127.0.0.1] helo=snowdrop.home) by snowdrop.home with esmtp (Exim 4.54) id 1ElG83-0004jI-P1; Sun, 11 Dec 2005 01:35:55 +0000 Date: Sun, 11 Dec 2005 01:35:50 +0000 From: Ciaran McCreesh To: gentoo-dev@lists.gentoo.org Cc: glep@gentoo.org Subject: [gentoo-dev] GLEP 42 (Critical news reporting) updates Message-ID: <20051211013550.66bfd7d2@snowdrop.home> X-Mailer: Sylpheed-Claws 2.0.0-rc1 (GTK+ 2.8.8; i686-pc-linux-gnu) Precedence: bulk List-Post: List-Help: List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Id: Gentoo Linux mail X-BeenThere: gentoo-dev@gentoo.org Reply-to: gentoo-dev@lists.gentoo.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/signed; boundary="Sig_7w3qXbf8L4JNg=_KqOR05ER"; protocol="application/pgp-signature"; micalg=PGP-SHA1 X-Archives-Salt: dd6fca8a-de91-42ce-ad73-2d683e9e82c5 X-Archives-Hash: 714c3830408e7d498f71893393a5a2fc --Sig_7w3qXbf8L4JNg=_KqOR05ER Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary=MP_hWe1.TtkqXFuKJHEy+cKlO2 --MP_hWe1.TtkqXFuKJHEy+cKlO2 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Disposition: inline Main changes since the previous edition: * File format tweaks. * Changes to the way relevance headers work to make it easy to do things like "show this to gcc-3.3 users on x86 or sparc". * News items are no longer copied. This makes it considerably easier to install news items -- there's no longer a need to do clever directory syncing tricks. For those of you who can't read RST, an updated version will appear on the website sometime in the not too distant future. For those of you who can, see the attached. For the sake of keeping this vaguely sane, replies that meet any of the following criteria will be ignored: * Top or HTML posting * Lack of coherent English sentences, complete with proper punctuation and capitalisation. * The sender's first name ends in 'an', and they are not me. * Questions about why the GLEP doesn't address hypothetical vapourware concepts. * Questions about why the GLEP doesn't provide a way to tell users that there's a pissup at Reuben's house next Tuesday. * Questions about why the GLEP doesn't require "integration with other systems", rather than leaving it merely as something that should be easily doable. * Anything involving XML. --=20 Ciaran McCreesh : Gentoo Developer (I can kill you with my brain) Mail : ciaranm at gentoo.org Web : http://dev.gentoo.org/~ciaranm --MP_hWe1.TtkqXFuKJHEy+cKlO2 Content-Type: text/plain; name=glep-0042.txt Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=glep-0042.txt GLEP: 42 Title: Critical News Reporting Version: $Revision: $ Author: Ciaran McCreesh Last-Modified: $Date: $ Status: Draft Type: Standards Track Content-Type: text/x-rst Created: 31-Oct-2005 Post-History: 1-Nov-2005, 5-Nov-2005, 7-Nov-2005, 11-Dec-2005 Abstract =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D This GLEP proposes a new way of informing users about important updates and= news regarding tree-related items. Motivation =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D Although most package updates are clean and require little user action, occasionally an upgrade requires user intervention during the upgrade proce= ss. Recent examples of the latter include the ``gcc-3.4`` stabilisation on ``x8= 6`` and the ``mysql-5`` database format changes. There are currently several ways of delivering important news items to our users, none of them particularly effective: * Gentoo Weekly News * The ``gentoo-announce``, ``gentoo-user`` and ``gentoo-dev`` mailing lists * The Gentoo Forums * The main Gentoo website * RSS feeds of Gentoo news A more reliable way of getting news of critical updates out to users is req= uired to avoid repeats of the various recent upgrade debacles. This GLEP proposes= a solution based around pushing news items out to the user via the ``rsync`` = tree. .. Important:: This GLEP does not seek to replace or modify ``einfo`` messa= ges which are displayed post-install. That is a separate issue which is hand= led by ``elog`` [#bug-11359]_. Requirements =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D An adequate solution must meet all of the following requirements: Preemptive Users should be told of changes *before* they break a system, not after= the damage has already been done. Ideally, the system administrator would be given ample warning to plan difficult upgrades and changes, rather than= only being told just before action is necessary. No user subscription required It has already been demonstrated [#forums-apache2]_ that many users do = not read the ``gentoo-announce`` mailing list or ``RSS`` feeds. A solution = which requires subscription has no advantage over current methods. No user monitoring required It has already been demonstrated [#forums-apache2]_ that many users do = not read news items posted to the Gentoo website, or do not read news items until it is too late. A solution that relies upon active monitoring of a particular source has no advantage over current methods. Relevant System administrators who do not use a particular package should not ha= ve to read news items which affect purely that package. Some news items may b= e of relevance to most or all users, but those that are not should not be fo= rced upon users unnecessarily. Lightweight It is not reasonable to expect all users to have an MTA, web browser, e= mail client, cron daemon or text processing suite available on their system. Users must not be forced to install unreasonable extra software to be a= ble to read news items. No privacy violations Users of the solution should not be required to provide information abo= ut their systems (for example, IP addresses or installed packages). Multiple delivery method support Some users may wish to view news items via email, some via a terminal a= nd some via a web browser. A solution should either support all of these methods or (better still) make it simple to write clients for displaying news items in different ways. The following characteristics would be desirable: Internationalisable Being able to provide messages in multiple languages may be beneficial. Quality control There should be some way to ensure that badly written or irrelevant mes= sages are not sent out, for example by inexperienced developers or those whose English language skills are below par. Simple for developers Posting news items should be as simple as is reasonably possible. Simple for users Reading relevant news items should be as simple as is reasonably possib= le. Compatibility with existing and future news sources A news system would ideally be able to be integrated with existing news sources (for example, Forums, GWN, the main Gentoo website) without excessive difficulty. Similarly, easy interoperation with any future ne= ws sources should not be precluded. Specification =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D Overview -------- News items are published and delivered to users as follows: 1. A news item is written. The format to be used is described below. 2. The news item is reviewed, following the process described in `News Item Quality Control`_. 3. The news item is committed to a CVS (or Subversion [#glep-36]_) reposito= ry. From here, it is merged with the rsync tree. This is described in `News = Item Distribution`_. 4. Users fetch the news item when they sync. This ensures that the news ite= ms in question are pushed to the user before the user accidentally makes an unwanted change. No changes to the existing rsync process are required by this GLEP. 5. The package manager filters the news item and, if it is relevant, marks = the news item for reading. The package manager should also display a notice informing the user that there are unread news items. 6. The news item is handled by the user's choice of news item reader. See `= News Item Clients`_. News Item Identities -------------------- Each news item will have a unique identifier. This identifier will be in the form ``yyyy-mm-dd-short-name``, where ``yyyy`` is the year (e.g. ``2005``), ``mm`` is the month (``01`` through ``12``) and dd is the day of the month (``01`` through ``31``). The ``short-name`` is a very short name describing= the news item (e.g. ``yoursql-updates``), consisting only of the characters ``a= -z``, ``0-9`` and ``-`` (hyphen). News Item Directories --------------------- Each news item will be represented by a directory whose name is the same as= the news item's identifier. The directory will contain a file named ``yyyy-mm-dd-short-name.en.txt``, w= hich contains the text of the news item, in English, in the format described bel= ow. If a news item is translated, other files named ``yyyy-mm-dd-short-name.xx.= txt`` (where ``xx`` is the ISO 639 [#iso-639]_ two letter country code) will also= be provided. However, only the English version of a news item is authoritative. This anglocentricity is justified by precedent [#glep-34]_. News Item Files --------------- A news item file is a text file, encoded using UTF-8 [#rfc-3629]_ for compatibility with and for the same reasons as existing Gentoo documentation [#docs-policy]_ and the tree [#glep-31]_. News items should be signed with a detached GPG signature: :: gpg --armour --detach-sign ????-??-??-*.??.txt A news item file's content will consist of an RFC 822 style header [#rfc-82= 2]_ followed by the main body of the message as plain text. This GLEP defines various optional and mandatory headers. Future GLEPs may propose new header= s =E2=80=94 tools handling these news items must ignore any unrecognised header. News Item Headers ''''''''''''''''' The following headers describe the purpose and format of the news item: ``Title:`` A short (maximum 44 characters) descriptive title. Mandatory. ``Author:`` Author's name and email address, in the form ``Real Name ``. Mandatory; multiple author headers may be specified if appropriate. ``Translator:`` For translated news items, the translator's name and email address. Mul= tiple translator headers may be specified if appropriate. ``Content-Type:`` Must be ``text/plain``. Mandatory. ``Posted:`` Date of posting, in ``dd-mmm-yyyy`` format (e.g. 14-Aug-2001) for compatibility with GLEP 1 [#glep-1]_. UTC time in ``hh-mm-ss +0000`` fo= rmat may also be included. Mandatory. ``Revision:`` Initially 1. Incremented every time a non-trivial change is made. Chan= ges which require a re-read of the news item should instead use a new news = item file. Mandatory. ``News-Item-Format:`` Must be ``1.0``. Future revisions to the format may increment the minor number for backwards-compatible changes, or the major number for major changes. The following headers are used for filtering: ``Display-If-Installed:`` A dependency atom or simple package name (for example, ```` (which may also include a red warning messa= ge) The package manager may use a timestamp check file to avoid having to proce= ss news items unnecessarily. The package manager must keep track of news items that have already been ad= ded to the unread list to avoid repeatedly marking a deleted news item. This co= uld be handled via a ``news.skip`` file, but implementation is not specified by= this GLEP. Users who really don't care about news items can use ``rsync_excludes`` to filter out the ``metadata/news/`` directory. News Item Clients ----------------- Once a news item is marked for reading, third party tools (or traditional c= ore Unix tools) can be used to display and view the news files. When a news item is read, its name should be removed from the ``news.unread= `` file. News clients may add the name to a ``news.read`` file in the same directory with the same file format. An ``eselect`` [#eselect]_ module shall be created as the 'suggested' displ= ay tool; other display tools (for example, a news to email forwarder, which wo= uld be ideal for users who sync on a ``cron``) are left as options for those who desire them. News Item Removal ----------------- News items can be removed (by removing the news file from the main tree) wh= en they are no longer relevant, if they are made obsolete by a future news ite= m or after a long period of time. This is the same as the method used for ``upda= tes`` entries. Integration with Existing Systems =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D It would be simple to convert these news items into the format used for news items on the Gentoo website or posts for the ``gentoo-announce`` mailing li= st. There is an existing automated tool [#forums-glsa]_ for posting GLSAs to the forums. A similar tool can be used for these news items. Backwards Compatibility =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D Backwards compatibility is not a concern here. Existing tools will simply i= gnore the ``news/`` directory. Reference Implementation =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D Portage Code ------------ TODO Simple ``eselect`` News Client ------------------------------ TODO Removed until the exact format details are figured out. Simple News to Mail Forwarder ----------------------------- TODO Removed until the exact format details are figured out. Credits =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D The idea behind notifying users of news updates via Portage comes from Stua= rt Herbert [#stuart-blog]_. Thanks to Lance Albertson, Stephen Bennett, Donnie Berkholz, Grant Goodyear, Brian Harring, Dan Meltzer, Jason Stubbs, Paul de Vrieze and Alec Warner for input. Some of the ideas presented here are theirs, others go completely against their suggestions. Example Files =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D TODO Removed until the exact format details are figured out. References =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D .. [#bug-11359] Bugzilla Bug 11359 "[NEW FEATURE] pkg_postinst/pkg_preinst ewarn/einfo logging", https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=3D11359 .. [#docs-policy] Gentoo XML Guide, Daniel Robbins et al., http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/xml-guide.xml .. [#eselect] eselect modular framework for configuration and administration utilities, http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/eselect/index.xml .. [#forums-glsa] Forums user GLSA, http://forums.gentoo.org/profile.php?mode=3Dviewprofile&u=3D55648 .. [#forums-apache2] Forums thread "Gentoo Apache2 Config Change Idiocy", http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-384368.html .. [#glep-1] GLEP 1: "GLEP Purpose and Guidelines", Grant Goodyear, http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/glep/glep-0001.html .. [#glep-22] GLEP 22: "New "keyword" system to incorporate various userlands/kernels/archs", Grant Goodyear, http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/glep/glep-0022.html .. [#glep-31] GLEP 31: "Character Sets for Portage Tree Items", Ciaran McCreesh, http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/glep/glep-0031.html .. [#glep-34] GLEP 34: "Per-Category metadata.xml Files", Ciaran McCreesh, http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/glep/glep-0034.html .. [#glep-36] GLEP 36: "Subversion/CVS for Gentoo Hosted Projects", Aaron Walker, http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/glep/glep-0036.html .. [#iso-639] ISO 639 "Code for the representation of names of languages" .. [#ramereth-repo] "Re: [gentoo-dev] GLEP ??: Critical News Reporting", La= nce Albertson, http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=3Dgentoo-dev&m=3D113111585907703&w=3D2 .. [#rfc-822] RFC 822 "Standard for the format of ARPA Internet text messag= es" .. [#rfc-3629] RFC 3629: "UTF-8, a transformation format of ISO 10646" http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3629.txt .. [#stuart-blog] "Favouring an automatic news mechanism", Stuart Herbert, http://stu.gnqs.org/diary/gentoo.php/2005/10/28/favouring_an_automatic= _news_mechanism Copyright =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D This document has been placed in the public domain. .. vim: set tw=3D80 fileencoding=3Dutf-8 spell spelllang=3Den et : --MP_hWe1.TtkqXFuKJHEy+cKlO2-- --Sig_7w3qXbf8L4JNg=_KqOR05ER Content-Type: application/pgp-signature; name=signature.asc Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=signature.asc -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.2 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFDm4J796zL6DUtXhERAhb5AKCqLUoxBALukMCbsZ3nwE4MFDTnJgCffxCj 33dTqMmwxi9KM99wZhlEHDA= =ABVy -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --Sig_7w3qXbf8L4JNg=_KqOR05ER-- -- gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list