[gentoo-dev] RFC: extending project xml to have stuff that the project is working on and collect them as Gentoo current goals

[gentoo-dev] RFC: extending project xml to have stuff that the project is working on and collect them as Gentoo current goals

[Petteri Räty]

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As the recent thread showed there is a lot going on in Gentoo land
although it doesn't always seem so. I propose we extend project xml to
describe current stuff going on in the project in question and their
estimated completion date. Then we require this file to be updated
monthly. What do you think?

Regards,
Petteri
--
Gentoo/Java project lead
Gentoo/Recruiters project lead


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Re: [gentoo-dev] RFC: extending project xml to have stuff that the project is working on and collect them as Gentoo current goals

[Mike Doty]

Petteri Räty wrote:
> As the recent thread showed there is a lot going on in Gentoo land
> although it doesn't always seem so. I propose we extend project xml to
> describe current stuff going on in the project in question and their
> estimated completion date. Then we require this file to be updated
> monthly. What do you think?
> 
> Regards,
> Petteri
> --
> Gentoo/Java project lead
> Gentoo/Recruiters project lead
> 
what do you mean by "project xml"?
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Re: [gentoo-dev] RFC: extending project xml to have stuff that the project is working on and collect them as Gentoo current goals

[Petteri Räty]

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Mike Doty kirjoitti:
> Petteri Räty wrote:
>> As the recent thread showed there is a lot going on in Gentoo land
>> although it doesn't always seem so. I propose we extend project xml to
>> describe current stuff going on in the project in question and their
>> estimated completion date. Then we require this file to be updated
>> monthly. What do you think?
>>
>> Regards,
>> Petteri
>> -- 
>> Gentoo/Java project lead
>> Gentoo/Recruiters project lead
>>
> what do you mean by "project xml"?

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<?xml-stylesheet href="/xsl/project.xsl" type="text/xsl"?>
<?xml-stylesheet href="/xsl/guide.xsl" type="text/xsl"?>
<!DOCTYPE project SYSTEM "/dtd/project.dtd">
<project>
<name>Java</name>


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Re: [gentoo-dev] RFC: extending project xml to have stuff that the project is working on and collect them as Gentoo current goals

[Carsten Lohrke]

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Thanks for the xml excerpt Pettery, but I'm still in the dark about what you 
speak at all.


Carsten

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Re: [gentoo-dev] RFC: extending project xml to have stuff that the project is working on and collect them as Gentoo current goals

[Ned Ludd]

On Tue, 2007-04-10 at 23:34 +0300, Petteri Räty wrote:
> As the recent thread showed there is a lot going on in Gentoo land
> although it doesn't always seem so. I propose we extend project xml to
> describe current stuff going on in the project in question and their
> estimated completion date.

>  Then we require this file to be updated
> monthly. What do you think?

I'd rather not put this stipulation into place. 

Unless you are proposing that planet.gentoo.org die. Which I don't think
you are doing..

-- 
Ned Ludd <solar@gentoo.org>
Gentoo Linux

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Re: [gentoo-dev] RFC: extending project xml to have stuff that the project is working on and collect them as Gentoo current goals

[Chris Gianelloni]

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On Tue, 2007-04-10 at 23:34 +0300, Petteri Räty wrote:
> Then we require this file to be updated
> monthly. What do you think? 

I think Release Engineering would kill you in our off time.  This has
been brought up before, but some projects just don't have enough going
on to update on a regular cycle.

-- 
Chris Gianelloni
Release Engineering Strategic Lead
Alpha/AMD64/x86 Architecture Teams
Games Developer/Council Member/Foundation Trustee
Gentoo Foundation

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Re: [gentoo-dev] RFC: extending project xml to have stuff that the project is working on and collect them as Gentoo current goals

[Petteri Räty]

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Chris Gianelloni kirjoitti:
> On Tue, 2007-04-10 at 23:34 +0300, Petteri Räty wrote:
>> Then we require this file to be updated
>> monthly. What do you think? 
> 
> I think Release Engineering would kill you in our off time.  This has
> been brought up before, but some projects just don't have enough going
> on to update on a regular cycle.
> 

So you just change the date? I don't think we should require anything
but acknowledgment that the old data still applies.

Regards,
Petteri


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Re: [gentoo-dev] RFC: extending project xml to have stuff that the project is working on and collect them as Gentoo current goals

[Chris Gianelloni]

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On Wed, 2007-04-11 at 00:17 +0300, Petteri Räty wrote:
> Chris Gianelloni kirjoitti:
> > On Tue, 2007-04-10 at 23:34 +0300, Petteri Räty wrote:
> >> Then we require this file to be updated
> >> monthly. What do you think? 
> > 
> > I think Release Engineering would kill you in our off time.  This has
> > been brought up before, but some projects just don't have enough going
> > on to update on a regular cycle.
> > 
> 
> So you just change the date? I don't think we should require anything
> but acknowledgment that the old data still applies.

So turn it into one more mundane and pointless task that I am forced to
perform simply because it is a matter of policy?  Having to go around
saying "yes, this is still correct" is rather wasteful, is it not?  I
know I would have to do this for several projects, all of which are not
the sort to really have updates to publish.

-- 
Chris Gianelloni
Release Engineering Strategic Lead
Alpha/AMD64/x86 Architecture Teams
Games Developer/Council Member/Foundation Trustee
Gentoo Foundation

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Re: [gentoo-dev] RFC: extending project xml to have stuff that the project is working on and collect them as Gentoo current goals

[Michael Krelin]

> 
> So turn it into one more mundane and pointless task that I am forced to
> perform simply because it is a matter of policy?  Having to go around
> saying "yes, this is still correct" is rather wasteful, is it not?  I
> know I would have to do this for several projects, all of which are not
> the sort to really have updates to publish.
> 

How about sending out unobliging reminder? Might help if it's not set to
remind too often.

Love,
H
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Re: [gentoo-dev] RFC: extending project xml to have stuff that the project is working on and collect them as Gentoo current goals

[Donnie Berkholz]

Chris Gianelloni wrote:
> On Wed, 2007-04-11 at 00:17 +0300, Petteri Räty wrote:
>> Chris Gianelloni kirjoitti:
>>> On Tue, 2007-04-10 at 23:34 +0300, Petteri Räty wrote:
>>>> Then we require this file to be updated
>>>> monthly. What do you think? 
>>> I think Release Engineering would kill you in our off time.  This has
>>> been brought up before, but some projects just don't have enough going
>>> on to update on a regular cycle.
>>>
>> So you just change the date? I don't think we should require anything
>> but acknowledgment that the old data still applies.
> 
> So turn it into one more mundane and pointless task that I am forced to
> perform simply because it is a matter of policy?  Having to go around
> saying "yes, this is still correct" is rather wasteful, is it not?  I
> know I would have to do this for several projects, all of which are not
> the sort to really have updates to publish.

Seems like a reasonable idea. So many of our webpages are out of date 
that asking people to check any pages they "maintain" (where's our 
metadata.xml?) whether they're still current once in a while might work. 
Adding extra busywork to this by documenting it may not be worthwhile.

Thanks,
Donnie
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Re: [gentoo-dev] RFC: extending project xml to have stuff that the project is working on and collect them as Gentoo current goals

[Bryan Østergaard]

On Tue, Apr 10, 2007 at 11:34:25PM +0300, Petteri R??ty wrote:
> As the recent thread showed there is a lot going on in Gentoo land
> although it doesn't always seem so. I propose we extend project xml to
> describe current stuff going on in the project in question and their
> estimated completion date. Then we require this file to be updated
> monthly. What do you think?
> 
I'd probably just cron my updates personally :)

Alpha and IA64 would both read "More keywording stuff done, yawn" every
month. Python, apache and mozilla would read something like "fixed
random bugs". Most other projects I'm involved in would be very much
like that I think.

The only projects that I'm a member of that it would be interesting to
hear from imo is devrel and council and they already give status updates
whenever something interesting or important happens.

Please note that I'm not against these status updates at all. I just
don't think forcing a pre-determined schedule makes much sense.

Regards,
Bryan Øtergaard
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Re: [gentoo-dev] RFC: extending project xml to have stuff that the project is working on and collect them as Gentoo current goals

[Petteri Räty]

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Bryan Østergaard kirjoitti:
> On Tue, Apr 10, 2007 at 11:34:25PM +0300, Petteri R??ty wrote:
>> As the recent thread showed there is a lot going on in Gentoo land
>> although it doesn't always seem so. I propose we extend project xml to
>> describe current stuff going on in the project in question and their
>> estimated completion date. Then we require this file to be updated
>> monthly. What do you think?
>>
> I'd probably just cron my updates personally :)
> 
> Alpha and IA64 would both read "More keywording stuff done, yawn" every
> month. Python, apache and mozilla would read something like "fixed
> random bugs". Most other projects I'm involved in would be very much
> like that I think.
>

I think project leads could apply for exception from the council if they
are more like on going maintenance (arch teams come to mind). But
something like Java has had something big in works all the time I have
been involved. I don't really care about the implementation that much as
long as we have a page where all the current major things under work are
described.

Regards,
Petteri



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Re: [gentoo-dev] RFC: extending project xml to have stuff that the project is working on and collect them as Gentoo current goals

[Chris Gianelloni]

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On Wed, 2007-04-11 at 00:37 +0300, Petteri Räty wrote:
> I think project leads could apply for exception from the council if they
> are more like on going maintenance (arch teams come to mind). But
> something like Java has had something big in works all the time I have
> been involved. I don't really care about the implementation that much as
> long as we have a page where all the current major things under work are
> described.

I think the projects doing major things is the exception, rather than
the rule.  That being said, there's nothing stopping you (or anyone)
from doing a page like this now, without needing to extend the
projectxml, at all.  All someone needs to do is create it.  After all,
why should we:

- extend the xml
- have everyone edit their own project pages
- create some parser that has to troll all of the project pages to
create a single page
- maintain said parser

when we could simply have a single page for everybody to edit with the
given information?

-- 
Chris Gianelloni
Release Engineering Strategic Lead
Alpha/AMD64/x86 Architecture Teams
Games Developer/Council Member/Foundation Trustee
Gentoo Foundation

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Re: [gentoo-dev] RFC: extending project xml to have stuff that the project is working on and collect them as Gentoo current goals

[Jan Kundrát]

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Chris Gianelloni wrote:
> - extend the xml

The difficulty is similar to creating Yet Another format for your page.

> - have everyone edit their own project pages

It doesn't matter if you edit file A or file B, IMHO.

> - create some parser that has to troll all of the project pages to
> create a single page
> - maintain said parser

Which essentialy is "create and maintain an XSLT sheet" and the
difficulty is similar, again.

> when we could simply have a single page for everybody to edit with the
> given information?

Because it's reasonable to think that related information should be kept
together.

Cheers,
-jkt

-- 
cd /local/pub && more beer > /dev/mouth


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Re: [gentoo-dev] RFC: extending project xml to have stuff that the project is working on and collect them as Gentoo current goals

[Alec Warner]

Jan Kundrát wrote:
> Chris Gianelloni wrote:
>> - extend the xml
> 
> The difficulty is similar to creating Yet Another format for your page.
> 
>> - have everyone edit their own project pages
> 
> It doesn't matter if you edit file A or file B, IMHO.
> 
>> - create some parser that has to troll all of the project pages to
>> create a single page
>> - maintain said parser
> 
> Which essentialy is "create and maintain an XSLT sheet" and the
> difficulty is similar, again.
> 
>> when we could simply have a single page for everybody to edit with the
>> given information?
> 
> Because it's reasonable to think that related information should be kept
> together.
> 
> Cheers,
> -jkt
> 

In my GLEP I gave Petteri every project lead would just send mail to 
project-status@gentoo.org and a rails app would attempt to sensibly 
parse your mail and generate a page for you.  This would be similar to a 
planet-esque user-facing interface.

-Alec
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Re: [gentoo-dev] RFC: extending project xml to have stuff that the project is working on and collect them as Gentoo current goals

[Mike Frysinger]

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On Tuesday 10 April 2007, Petteri Räty wrote:
> I propose we extend project xml to describe current stuff going on in the
> project in question and their estimated completion date.

mmm good ...

> Then we require this file to be updated monthly.

... not so good
-mike

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Re: [gentoo-dev] RFC: extending project xml to have stuff that the project is working on and collect them as Gentoo current goals

[Marius Mauch]

On Tue, 10 Apr 2007 23:34:25 +0300
Petteri Räty <betelgeuse@gentoo.org> wrote:

> As the recent thread showed there is a lot going on in Gentoo land
> although it doesn't always seem so. I propose we extend project xml to
> describe current stuff going on in the project in question and their
> estimated completion date. Then we require this file to be updated
> monthly. What do you think?

Assuming we'd go with this, what would happen if a project doesn't update it's file?
Realistic answer: nothing. So any such requirement is just a recommendation anyway.
Besides there already is the <task> tag that can be used for that (though the layout is extremely crappy).
Counter proposal: Extend planet.g.o with project feeds, e.g. planet.g.o/projects/foo collecting news from all members of project foo (identified by category or so). That's where most people are posting/looking for news anyway these days.

Marius
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Re: [gentoo-dev] RFC: extending project xml to have stuff that the project is working on and collect them as Gentoo current goals

[Stephen Bennett]

On Tue, 10 Apr 2007 23:34:25 +0300
Petteri Räty <betelgeuse@gentoo.org> wrote:

> As the recent thread showed there is a lot going on in Gentoo land
> although it doesn't always seem so. I propose we extend project xml to
> describe current stuff going on in the project in question and their
> estimated completion date. Then we require this file to be updated
> monthly. What do you think?

I'm going to echo Mike here -- the additions are good, the forced
update schedule not so good. However, there's something in the subject
line not in the body which I also like:

> and collect them as Gentoo current goals

I wouldn't have chosen those words, but a list somewhere of all the new,
shiny and/or important stuff people are working on could be nice if it
can be done well. The GWN's future zone was a step in this direction
but seems to have died off lately and never really (IMO) got enough
material to realise the potential. Of course, this relies upon people
in Gentoo actually doing new, shiny and/or important things first,
before telling people about them.
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[gentoo-dev] Re: RFC: extending project xml to have stuff that the project is working on and collect them as Gentoo current goals

[Duncan]

Petteri Räty <betelgeuse@gentoo.org> posted 461BF4D1.6090204@gentoo.org,
excerpted below, on  Tue, 10 Apr 2007 23:34:25 +0300:

> As the recent thread showed there is a lot going on in Gentoo land
> although it doesn't always seem so. I propose we extend project xml to
> describe current stuff going on in the project in question and their
> estimated completion date. Then we require this file to be updated
> monthly. What do you think?

I think proposals such as this have come up before. (No offense 
intended.  In fact, probably you and enough others it's time to outline 
the reasons again, simply weren't around at the time.)  I think they went 
nowhere, in part because it was thought to be just more bureaucracy 
forced (the term you used was required) on the team leads, to little 
ultimate effect (see kloeri's cron remarks).  

Remember, Gentoo's all volunteers.  You can't force them to do it as part 
of their job (for their paycheck).  What's the penalty going to be?  
Suspension of the team lead, throwing a monkey wrench in the progress 
that was being made?  Dissolving the project?  From what I've observed 
here and elsewhere over the years, a "requirement" that can't be enforced 
is a very unhealthy thing.

Thus, it's not a very practical idea, or at least no one was able to 
figure out how to make it such in previous rounds.

Instead, what tends to happen is somewhat less frequently and more 
informally, but perhaps more effectively as it's not forced. 
Periodically, perhaps twice a year or so, someone starts a thread like 
the one you referred to.  Often it's prompted by year-end or mid-year, 
and someone posts an impromptu summary of where their project is.  Other 
times, it's as this one, started for other reasons.  However, once one 
person posts a summary, another does and another, and pretty soon most of 
the projects have... and everybody did it impromptu, nothing "required" 
about it. =8^)

Of course, in more specific cases, the council notices and ultimately 
meetings often bring about discussion of projects of particular interest 
at the moment.

In any case, it may not get to the project's web page, but anyone (dev, 
user, journalist, or simply curious public) caring enough to follow this 
list ends up seeing the updates as I said, perhaps twice a year or so.  
If one were suitably devious, one could even scheme to generate such a 
thread starter every few months (cron /that/ reminder =8^), just to get 
the pile-on effect and see where everyone was, again without "requiring" 
reports of anyone. =8^)

Of course, often these threads get mentioned in GWN and thus features not 
only there, but as a result on the Gentoo home page and on community 
sites such as LWN as well, so one doesn't even have to follow this list 
to know about it, only make /some/ effort to be keeping up with general 
things Gentoo, and they'll probably see coverage of the thread.

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman

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