[gentoo-dev] Fw: reviewboard and its bugs

[IAN DELANEY <della5@iinet.com.au>]

Begin forwarded message:

Date: Wed, 20 Aug 2014 08:45:21 +0800
From: IAN DELANEY <idella4@gentoo.org>
To: gentoo-python@lists.gentoo.org
Subject: reviewboard and its bugs

cancel the gentoo-python@lists, was intended for gentoo-dev@lists

The package reviewboard has reached a stage of warranting this
submission to the ML.  A simple search of reviewboard in bugzilla lists
a few 'user submitted' bugs and no less than 3 sec bugs. This package I
added initially because interest was expressed mainly by my final
mentor and the other (prior) co-maintainer. Because of changes to
reviewboard upstream, we need a new eclass and category to cater to
certain js packages.

Now wishing to re-write all I have already written in the bugs, in
summary, reviewboard has become unworkable by the developers of
reviewboard itself going down the path of nodejs. Enter npm.
npm was an unknown to me until Djblets and django-pipeline ebuilds
failed due to the absence of UglifyJS and some related js deps.  On
being informed of ebuilds for this and related deps in the overlay of
neurogeek, I discovered they required npm which it seems comes in
nodejs.  The response drawn by fellow devs over npm is in my limited
experience unprecedented.  The overall reaction was leave it and don't
go there.  What became apparent from the ebulds in neurogeek's overlay
was that these deps didn't lend themselves well to writing ebuilds for
them for portage.  In the overlay there is in fact an npm eclass to
overseer their installation into the system.

After some somewhat reluctant discussion of npm in irc, it has at least
been suggested that the use of nodejs' UglifyJS in django-pipeline
could be patched out to relieve us all of any reliance or involvement
of npm to install these js oriented deps.  That has not ofcourse been
attempted or tested and allows for the probability of breaking Djblets
and or reviewboard which I suspect has been written by reviewboard
developers to explicitly depend on and call these deps. The decision it
seems isn't whether to allows npm into portage, it already comes with
nodejs correct me if I misunderstand.  The question is whether to
support this npm installing packages into a gentoo system by ebuilds
essentially outside of portage.  This requires an eclass and it has
been suggested a whole new category for portage under which to
categorise these npm type packages.  Such an eclass has already been
written, however, that it has never been added to portage along with js
style packages in the overlay, to me at least, strongly suggests the
author always had reservations with its addition.

There is ofcourse the alternative; to write ebuilds to install these
packages without npm involvement.  This would still require an
eclass anyway.   Either way, nodejs and java script are totally outside
the realm of pythonic packages and are therefore outside my realm
of knowledge and experience.  Reviewboard developers have essentially
created a huge dilemma for users of reviewboard in gentoo by going
electing to use this js 'toolchain'.  While I normally go to any
lengths to maintain any and all packages within the python realm, this
reviewboard has gone way beyond that realm. Until this, its
underbelly was pure python and posed no real problem. Now I have a
growing and unwelcome list of bugs of this package assigned to me as
the sole remaining maintainer which are now unworkable.

The real problem here is that there is an apparent keen set of would
be users of this package, one of whom is a gentoo dev, who is to be
found in at least one of those bugs.  To delete or mask the package
amounts to a clean solution, and also abandons gentoo users looking
to have the package made work for them.  

In summary, because of changes to reviewboard upstream, we need a new
eclass and category to write ebuilds to these packages and add them to
portage.



-- 
kind regards

Ian Delaney


-- 
kind regards

Ian Delaney