[gentoo-dev] new developers' keyword requests

[gentoo-dev] new developers' keyword requests

[Jeroen Roovers]

Perhaps it's a good idea to add a section to the devmanual about adding
new keywords to packages.

Recruits in particular might benefit from some background on what
keywording means and when it should be done, especially before they
start maintaining packages and then realise their packages are so
beautiful that they positively *deserve* to have some random keywords
added. This is not productive.

The way it works is that users of
specific architectures find that a package works for them on their
systems (which have enough resources and have the correct interfaces for
that particular program to be used conveniently, and so on), and that
they then request that their architecture keyword be added. What
doesn't work is having a handful of keywords on a package that nobody
cares about who actually uses the architectures in question.

Since over the years the Random Keyword Requests happen a *lot* right
after recruitment, it might even be useful to ask about this in the
quizzes. (The answer: your time is better spent fixing actual bugs.
bumping versions, adding features and maintaining a stable branch,
rather than raising the architecture count for your packages for no
adequately explored reason.)


Kind regards,
     jer

Re: [gentoo-dev] new developers' keyword requests

[Mike Gilbert]

On Thu, May 19, 2016 at 10:51 AM, Jeroen Roovers <jer@gentoo.org> wrote:
> Perhaps it's a good idea to add a section to the devmanual about adding
> new keywords to packages.
>
> Recruits in particular might benefit from some background on what
> keywording means and when it should be done, especially before they
> start maintaining packages and then realise their packages are so
> beautiful that they positively *deserve* to have some random keywords
> added. This is not productive.
>
> The way it works is that users of
> specific architectures find that a package works for them on their
> systems (which have enough resources and have the correct interfaces for
> that particular program to be used conveniently, and so on), and that
> they then request that their architecture keyword be added. What
> doesn't work is having a handful of keywords on a package that nobody
> cares about who actually uses the architectures in question.
>
> Since over the years the Random Keyword Requests happen a *lot* right
> after recruitment, it might even be useful to ask about this in the
> quizzes. (The answer: your time is better spent fixing actual bugs.
> bumping versions, adding features and maintaining a stable branch,
> rather than raising the architecture count for your packages for no
> adequately explored reason.)
>
>
> Kind regards,
>      jer
>

Both ideas (devmanual update + quiz question) seem good to me.

Re: [gentoo-dev] new developers' keyword requests

[Daniel Campbell]

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On 05/19/2016 07:51 AM, Jeroen Roovers wrote:
> Perhaps it's a good idea to add a section to the devmanual about adding
> new keywords to packages.
> 
> Recruits in particular might benefit from some background on what
> keywording means and when it should be done, especially before they
> start maintaining packages and then realise their packages are so
> beautiful that they positively *deserve* to have some random keywords
> added. This is not productive.
> 
> The way it works is that users of
> specific architectures find that a package works for them on their
> systems (which have enough resources and have the correct interfaces for
> that particular program to be used conveniently, and so on), and that
> they then request that their architecture keyword be added. What
> doesn't work is having a handful of keywords on a package that nobody
> cares about who actually uses the architectures in question.
> 
> Since over the years the Random Keyword Requests happen a *lot* right
> after recruitment, it might even be useful to ask about this in the
> quizzes. (The answer: your time is better spent fixing actual bugs.
> bumping versions, adding features and maintaining a stable branch,
> rather than raising the architecture count for your packages for no
> adequately explored reason.)
> 
> 
> Kind regards,
>      jer
> 
To make sure I understand what you're getting at, are you saying some
devs get on board and then request to add keywords to packages that they
already maintain? If said arches are already supported in Gentoo I see
little problem with that, especially if they intend on being part of the
arch testing team for that arch or have access to the hardware.

But if this is a case of developers asking for arch keywords to be added
for arches that aren't (yet) supported in Gentoo, I agree that we need
some sort of formal requirements, much like we do for stabilization (30
days no bugs, etc). Covering it in the devmanual is a great idea.

How many packages do you think is necessary before 'critical mass' is
reached and Gentoo should support it? I'm thinking it's less about the
number of packages, and more about the community around that arch as
well as whether or not a stage3 can be built for that arch in a
reasonable timeframe. If it can get coreutils up and going, a stage3 can
be built, and the handbook can be followed for that arch without issues
(say, with an overlay), it seems like that would be a case for adding
the keyword.

But adding keywords, as we know, comes with maintenance burden. New
arches can't get supported without people active in the community and
actually using the hardware. If that interest isn't there, why should we
add the keywords to the main repo? Overlays may be a fine alternative.

Just my 2¢. Thanks for bringing this up, it's a topic I didn't know was
a concern.

-- 
Daniel Campbell - Gentoo Developer
OpenPGP Key: 0x1EA055D6 @ hkp://keys.gnupg.net
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Re: [gentoo-dev] new developers' keyword requests

[Kristian Fiskerstrand]

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On 05/20/2016 03:36 AM, Daniel Campbell wrote:
> On 05/19/2016 07:51 AM, Jeroen Roovers wrote:

..

>>
> To make sure I understand what you're getting at, are you saying some
> devs get on board and then request to add keywords to packages that they
> already maintain? If said arches are already supported in Gentoo I see
> little problem with that, especially if they intend on being part of the
> arch testing team for that arch or have access to the hardware.

Can you elaborate on your definition of supported in this case? does it
deviate from stable arches (alpha, amd64, arm, hppa, ia64, ppc, ppc64,
sparc, x86)?

> 
> But if this is a case of developers asking for arch keywords to be added
> for arches that aren't (yet) supported in Gentoo, I agree that we need
> some sort of formal requirements, much like we do for stabilization (30
> days no bugs, etc). Covering it in the devmanual is a great idea.

keywording for a new arch should normally only be done when necessary,
mainly if it is a direct dependency of another package. There is no need
to keywor it for an arch until it has been tested on that arch by some
user / developer ... certainly not because some committing developer
think it is nice to have all arches listed just in case.

It is actually already [covered in the devmanual]; " It's important to
note that alternative arches (like alpha, ia64, s390, sh, sparc, hppa,
ppc*) are mainly undermanned arches, some of them are slow, they have
more basic problems and have a small userbase. Just file bugs for these
architectures when a package is going to be a dependency of a package
already keyworded. "

> 
> But adding keywords, as we know, comes with maintenance burden. New

Indeed, more people should think of this. Adding packages in itself adds
maintenance burdens for other teams and the usefulness should be
considered accordingly before doing so

> arches can't get supported without people active in the community and
> actually using the hardware. If that interest isn't there, why should we
> add the keywords to the main repo? Overlays may be a fine alternative.
> 
> Just my 2¢. Thanks for bringing this up, it's a topic I didn't know was
> a concern.
> 

References:
[covered in the devmanual]
https://devmanual.gentoo.org/keywording/index.html



-- 
Kristian Fiskerstrand
OpenPGP certificate reachable at hkp://pool.sks-keyservers.net
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Re: [gentoo-dev] new developers' keyword requests

[Kristian Fiskerstrand]

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On 05/20/2016 02:38 PM, Kristian Fiskerstrand wrote:
> On 05/20/2016 03:36 AM, Daniel Campbell wrote:
>> On 05/19/2016 07:51 AM, Jeroen Roovers wrote:
> 


> 
> keywording for a new arch should normally only be done when necessary,
> mainly if it is a direct dependency of another package. There is no need
> to keywor it for an arch until it has been tested on that arch by some
> user / developer ... certainly not because some committing developer
> think it is nice to have all arches listed just in case.
> 

I should actually elaborate on this (in addition to fixing some spelling
errors..), something to the line of "There is no need to keyword it for
an arch until it is being _used_ by some user/developer on that arch"

-- 
Kristian Fiskerstrand
OpenPGP certificate reachable at hkp://pool.sks-keyservers.net
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Re: [gentoo-dev] new developers' keyword requests

[Daniel Campbell]

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On 05/20/2016 05:38 AM, Kristian Fiskerstrand wrote:
> On 05/20/2016 03:36 AM, Daniel Campbell wrote:
>> On 05/19/2016 07:51 AM, Jeroen Roovers wrote:
> 
> ..
> 
>>>
>> To make sure I understand what you're getting at, are you saying some
>> devs get on board and then request to add keywords to packages that they
>> already maintain? If said arches are already supported in Gentoo I see
>> little problem with that, especially if they intend on being part of the
>> arch testing team for that arch or have access to the hardware.
> 
> Can you elaborate on your definition of supported in this case? does it
> deviate from stable arches (alpha, amd64, arm, hppa, ia64, ppc, ppc64,
> sparc, x86)?

I would say yes, if Gentoo has the manpower to maintain a stable branch
for an arch, it's supported. How *well* it's supported is a separate
concern and equally important.
> 
>>
>> But if this is a case of developers asking for arch keywords to be added
>> for arches that aren't (yet) supported in Gentoo, I agree that we need
>> some sort of formal requirements, much like we do for stabilization (30
>> days no bugs, etc). Covering it in the devmanual is a great idea.
> 
> keywording for a new arch should normally only be done when necessary,
> mainly if it is a direct dependency of another package. There is no need
> to keywor it for an arch until it has been tested on that arch by some
> user / developer ... certainly not because some committing developer
> think it is nice to have all arches listed just in case.
> 
> It is actually already [covered in the devmanual]; " It's important to
> note that alternative arches (like alpha, ia64, s390, sh, sparc, hppa,
> ppc*) are mainly undermanned arches, some of them are slow, they have
> more basic problems and have a small userbase. Just file bugs for these
> architectures when a package is going to be a dependency of a package
> already keyworded. "

Nice citation, I remember reading that last year. :) I agree: a new arch
should have users and testing backing it up so it doesn't get added and
later disappears or is left to sit and rot. As far as I understand, we
have the arches that we do because there are developers and users
willing to build it, submit bugs, and maintain it. New arches should be
held to the same standard.
> 
>>
>> But adding keywords, as we know, comes with maintenance burden. New
> 
> Indeed, more people should think of this. Adding packages in itself adds
> maintenance burdens for other teams and the usefulness should be
> considered accordingly before doing so
> 
>> arches can't get supported without people active in the community and
>> actually using the hardware. If that interest isn't there, why should we
>> add the keywords to the main repo? Overlays may be a fine alternative.
>>
>> Just my 2¢. Thanks for bringing this up, it's a topic I didn't know was
>> a concern.
>>
> 
> References:
> [covered in the devmanual]
> https://devmanual.gentoo.org/keywording/index.html
> 
> 
> 


-- 
Daniel Campbell - Gentoo Developer
OpenPGP Key: 0x1EA055D6 @ hkp://keys.gnupg.net
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Re: [gentoo-dev] new developers' keyword requests

[M. J. Everitt]

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On 20/05/16 14:11, Kristian Fiskerstrand wrote:
>
>> keywording for a new arch should normally only be done when necessary,
>> mainly if it is a direct dependency of another package. There is no need
>> to keywor it for an arch until it has been tested on that arch by some
>> user / developer ... certainly not because some committing developer
>> think it is nice to have all arches listed just in case.
>>
> I should actually elaborate on this (in addition to fixing some spelling
> errors..), something to the line of "There is no need to keyword it for
> an arch until it is being _used_ by some user/developer on that arch"
>
My understanding as a prospective maintainer and dev, was that when you
write an ebuild, you keyword the arches where /you personally/ have
successfully built the package as ~arch . If you as maintainer or a
user(s) then request stabilisation, that is where the arch teams, arch
testing, etc. come into play. The only exception (if any!) is where
amd64 and x86 often have an overlap whereby if it builds on one ..
there's a good probability it will work on the other.

As far as fresh *new* arches to Gentoo, is this really a thing?! Surely
we need a body of maintainers willing to support a new arch, and a new
'team' forming for such purposes, for bug fixes, stabilisation, etc.

Sounds to me rather a case of simply misunderstanding what the KEYWORDS
actually means and does in the context of Gentoo as a distro, else I've
got the wrong end of the stick somewhere ....


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Re: [gentoo-dev] new developers' keyword requests

[Jeroen Roovers]

On Thu, 19 May 2016 18:36:22 -0700
Daniel Campbell <zlg@gentoo.org> wrote:

> To make sure I understand what you're getting at, are you saying some
> devs get on board and then request to add keywords to packages that
> they already maintain? If said arches are already supported in Gentoo
> I see little problem with that, especially if they intend on being
> part of the arch testing team for that arch or have access to the
> hardware.

I am not talking about adding architecture keywords to profiles/.
I am talking about adding architecture keywords to ebuilds.


Regards,
     jer

Re: [gentoo-dev] new developers' keyword requests

[Ian Delaney]

On Fri, 20 May 2016 16:00:02 +0200
Jeroen Roovers <jer@gentoo.org> wrote:

> On Thu, 19 May 2016 18:36:22 -0700
> Daniel Campbell <zlg@gentoo.org> wrote:
> 
> > To make sure I understand what you're getting at, are you saying
> > some devs get on board and then request to add keywords to packages
> > that they already maintain? If said arches are already supported in
> > Gentoo I see little problem with that, especially if they intend on
> > being part of the arch testing team for that arch or have access to
> > the hardware.  
> 
> I am not talking about adding architecture keywords to profiles/.
> I am talking about adding architecture keywords to ebuilds.
> 
> 
> Regards,
>      jer
> 

Firstly I think previous replies have been de-railed on talking about
new alternate arches, which personally I think is the last thing we
need. If there is any confusion it is because the term keyword, like
most terms in I.T. gets pushed and pulled and stretched until it breaks.
To my understanding, KEYWORDS are arches.  But being told to 'keyword' a
package could mean perhaps, well, Hu knows. 

Supporting users doing just this lately, I have come across this a few
times.  Users and new devs are expected to be very ignorant of minor
arches, and despite having docs already informing them that they are
short staffed and have enough to do, the practicalities of how and why
to keyword request or not are still veiled in mystery. Users want to
keyword according to what they see supported upstream just because
they can. They appear to need it made manually clear to them that there
are qualifiers and conditions for putting something up for keywording.
These also I believe are as much as mystery to users as they are to
devs.  
How to establish a level of desire form userland to have gentoo
support the arch in the package??
How to establish sane rationale for it being put up for stable??
The last I heard was along the lines of, well, only put it up if it has
already been put up in the past.(someone in the past had a check list?)

If anyone, the members of the arch teams might have some insights based
upon first hand dealing with packages and their categories. Frankly,
how you can expect or achieve users and new devs to assess these is
more the issue, and I do not see there is any obvious path of becoming
informed of the interest of an invisible audience; userland

Hu knows

-- 
kind regards

Ian Delaney

Re: [gentoo-dev] new developers' keyword requests

[Sam Jorna]

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On Sat, May 21, 2016 at 10:09:04AM +0800, Ian Delaney wrote:
> On Fri, 20 May 2016 16:00:02 +0200
> Jeroen Roovers <jer@gentoo.org> wrote:
> 
> > On Thu, 19 May 2016 18:36:22 -0700
> > Daniel Campbell <zlg@gentoo.org> wrote:
> > 
> > > To make sure I understand what you're getting at, are you saying
> > > some devs get on board and then request to add keywords to packages
> > > that they already maintain? If said arches are already supported in
> > > Gentoo I see little problem with that, especially if they intend on
> > > being part of the arch testing team for that arch or have access to
> > > the hardware.  
> > 
> > I am not talking about adding architecture keywords to profiles/.
> > I am talking about adding architecture keywords to ebuilds.
> > 
> > 
> > Regards,
> >      jer
> > 
> 
> Firstly I think previous replies have been de-railed on talking about
> new alternate arches, which personally I think is the last thing we
> need. If there is any confusion it is because the term keyword, like
> most terms in I.T. gets pushed and pulled and stretched until it breaks.
> To my understanding, KEYWORDS are arches.  But being told to 'keyword' a
> package could mean perhaps, well, Hu knows. 

I don't know of any other usages of "KEYWORDS" within Gentoo - to my
knowledge the only definition is a list of which architectures a package
is known to work or not work on, and an indication of the level of
testing and expected usability on that architecture.

Is there some other definition that I'm missing?

> Supporting users doing just this lately, I have come across this a few
> times.  Users and new devs are expected to be very ignorant of minor
> arches, and despite having docs already informing them that they are
> short staffed and have enough to do, the practicalities of how and why
> to keyword request or not are still veiled in mystery. Users want to
> keyword according to what they see supported upstream just because
> they can. They appear to need it made manually clear to them that there
> are qualifiers and conditions for putting something up for keywording.
> These also I believe are as much as mystery to users as they are to
> devs.  

Appropriate use of KEYWORDS is actually covered in the Developer
quizzes, so I would have instead expected new developers to be more
acutely aware of the fact that keywording on minor arches should be
generally reserved for an as-needed basis.

> How to establish a level of desire form userland to have gentoo
> support the arch in the package??
> How to establish sane rationale for it being put up for stable??
> The last I heard was along the lines of, well, only put it up if it has
> already been put up in the past.(someone in the past had a check list?)
> 
> If anyone, the members of the arch teams might have some insights based
> upon first hand dealing with packages and their categories. Frankly,
> how you can expect or achieve users and new devs to assess these is
> more the issue, and I do not see there is any obvious path of becoming
> informed of the interest of an invisible audience; userland

As far as I know, users (as in non-maintainers - those out "in the wild")
can file keyword request bugs and it's up to the maintainer to then
determine relevancy and CC appropriate arch teams; and Bugzilla has a
voting feature[0] allowing users to indicate the strength of community
demand by voting on those bugs (which I have seen done previously).

[0] https://bugs.gentoo.org/page.cgi?id=fields.html#votes

-- 
Sam Jorna
GnuPG Key: D6180C26

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Re: [gentoo-dev] new developers' keyword requests

[Matt Turner]

On Thu, May 19, 2016 at 6:36 PM, Daniel Campbell <zlg@gentoo.org> wrote:
> To make sure I understand what you're getting at, are you saying some
> devs get on board and then request to add keywords to packages that they
> already maintain?

No, you've misunderstood.

He's saying people add new packages and then speculatively add
keywords for a bunch of architectures that they haven't tested. This
causes unnecessary packages to be keyworded on archs that don't want
them and can hardly afford the extra load.

The appropriate thing to do when adding a new package is to add only
keywords you can test and maintain (likely just ~amd64), and then file
a keyword request to ask arch teams to keyword the package if
appropriate, which leaves the choice to them.

Re: [gentoo-dev] new developers' keyword requests

[Daniel Campbell]

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On 05/20/2016 09:47 PM, Matt Turner wrote:
> On Thu, May 19, 2016 at 6:36 PM, Daniel Campbell <zlg@gentoo.org> wrote:
>> To make sure I understand what you're getting at, are you saying some
>> devs get on board and then request to add keywords to packages that they
>> already maintain?
> 
> No, you've misunderstood.
> 
> He's saying people add new packages and then speculatively add
> keywords for a bunch of architectures that they haven't tested. This
> causes unnecessary packages to be keyworded on archs that don't want
> them and can hardly afford the extra load.
> 
> The appropriate thing to do when adding a new package is to add only
> keywords you can test and maintain (likely just ~amd64), and then file
> a keyword request to ask arch teams to keyword the package if
> appropriate, which leaves the choice to them.
> 

Ah, I see. In that case I'm in full agreement. We're taught during the
mentoring/quizzing process that we don't keyword what we haven't tested.
That's one of the most basic "rules".

-- 
Daniel Campbell - Gentoo Developer
OpenPGP Key: 0x1EA055D6 @ hkp://keys.gnupg.net
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[gentoo-dev] Re: new developers' keyword requests

[Duncan]

Matt Turner posted on Fri, 20 May 2016 21:47:56 -0700 as excerpted:

> He's saying people add new packages and then speculatively add keywords
> for a bunch of architectures that they haven't tested. This causes
> unnecessary packages to be keyworded on archs that don't want them and
> can hardly afford the extra load.

I can even visualize the argument in support, too.

"Well, the package is known to work on that arch on Fedora..."

That may be, but has the package been actually tested to work on that 
arch within the gentoo context, and is it likely to be practical for the 
minor arch to continue to support?  It's not a question of whether it 
worked on fedora or not.  It's a question of whether it has been tested 
on gentoo or not, and whether that arch's users on gentoo find it useful 
enough to be worth the trouble to maintain over time and other software 
changes on that arch.

-- 
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

Re: [gentoo-dev] new developers' keyword requests

[Jeroen Roovers]

On Fri, 20 May 2016 21:47:56 -0700
Matt Turner <mattst88@gentoo.org> wrote:

> On Thu, May 19, 2016 at 6:36 PM, Daniel Campbell <zlg@gentoo.org>
> wrote:
> > To make sure I understand what you're getting at, are you saying
> > some devs get on board and then request to add keywords to packages
> > that they already maintain?  
> 
> No, you've misunderstood.
> 
> He's saying people add new packages and then speculatively add
> keywords for a bunch of architectures that they haven't tested.

No, that's already covered very well in the quizzes and devmanual.

What I mean is keyword requests of the type: "Hi, I maintain this
package now, and I'm very excited about it, so can I have these random
keywords added, please?"

I have plenty of examples of such keyword requests collected over the
years; anyone should be able to find them easily.


Regards,
     jer