[gentoo-dev] Re: No more stable keywords for Games

[gentoo-dev] Re: No more stable keywords for Games

[Philip Webb]

171118 David Seifert wrote:
> As the Games team does not have enough manpower to keep tabs on all
> games packages, we have dropped all games-* ebuilds to unstable
> keywords (modulo those required by stable non-games packages).
> 
> While I accept that this will cause some irritation for the community,
> pretending we have a well supported games collection by having a wealth
> of stable games packages is misleading at best. By having 99% of games
> be unstable, we convey the expectation users should have - namely that
> games in Gentoo are not part of crucial Tier 1 packages.
> 
> We welcome contributions from outsiders willing to polish up the games
> landscape in Gentoo.

Isn't this overkill in the absence of widespread bug reports for games ?
'Stable' doesn't mean well-maintained,
but in the tree for some time & no serious bug reports.

-- 
========================,,============================================
SUPPORT     ___________//___,   Philip Webb
ELECTRIC   /] [] [] [] [] []|   Cities Centre, University of Toronto
TRANSIT    `-O----------O---'   purslowatchassdotutorontodotca

Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: No more stable keywords for Games

[James Le Cuirot]

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On Sun, 19 Nov 2017 08:50:20 -0500
Philip Webb <purslow@ca.inter.net> wrote:

> 171118 David Seifert wrote:
> > As the Games team does not have enough manpower to keep tabs on all
> > games packages, we have dropped all games-* ebuilds to unstable
> > keywords (modulo those required by stable non-games packages).
> > 
> > While I accept that this will cause some irritation for the community,
> > pretending we have a well supported games collection by having a wealth
> > of stable games packages is misleading at best. By having 99% of games
> > be unstable, we convey the expectation users should have - namely that
> > games in Gentoo are not part of crucial Tier 1 packages.
> > 
> > We welcome contributions from outsiders willing to polish up the games
> > landscape in Gentoo.  
> 
> Isn't this overkill in the absence of widespread bug reports for games ?
> 'Stable' doesn't mean well-maintained,
> but in the tree for some time & no serious bug reports.

There are plenty of bug reports for games.

-- 
James Le Cuirot (chewi)
Gentoo Linux Developer

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: No more stable keywords for Games

[Philip Webb]

171119 James Le Cuirot wrote:
> On Sun, 19 Nov 2017 08:50:20 -0500
> Philip Webb <purslow@ca.inter.net> wrote:
>> 171118 David Seifert wrote:
>>> As the Games team does not have enough manpower to keep tabs on all
>>> games packages, we have dropped all games-* ebuilds to unstable
>>> keywords (modulo those required by stable non-games packages).
>> Isn't this overkill in the absence of widespread bug reports for games ?
>> 'Stable' doesn't mean well-maintained,
>> but in the tree for some time & no serious bug reports.
> There are plenty of bug reports for games.

What percentage of games pkgs have bugs ?

Eg I amuse myself with  games-puzzle/sgt-puzzles ;
it is maintained upstream with regular updates.
The only unresolved bug appears to be 602696
which relates to version 20161207, which is no longer in the tree :
why is the bug still marked 'confirmed' ?  Shouldn't it be 'resolved' ?

What justification is there for marking this pkg 'unstable' ?
My guess is that there are other games pkgs with no valid bug.

Marking all games 'unstable' still seems to be overkill.

-- 
========================,,============================================
SUPPORT     ___________//___,   Philip Webb
ELECTRIC   /] [] [] [] [] []|   Cities Centre, University of Toronto
TRANSIT    `-O----------O---'   purslowatchassdotutorontodotca

Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: No more stable keywords for Games

[R0b0t1]

Hello friends!

On Sun, Nov 19, 2017 at 12:45 PM, Philip Webb <purslow@ca.inter.net> wrote:
> 171119 James Le Cuirot wrote:
>> On Sun, 19 Nov 2017 08:50:20 -0500
>> Philip Webb <purslow@ca.inter.net> wrote:
>>> 171118 David Seifert wrote:
>>>> As the Games team does not have enough manpower to keep tabs on all
>>>> games packages, we have dropped all games-* ebuilds to unstable
>>>> keywords (modulo those required by stable non-games packages).
>>> Isn't this overkill in the absence of widespread bug reports for games ?
>>> 'Stable' doesn't mean well-maintained,
>>> but in the tree for some time & no serious bug reports.
>> There are plenty of bug reports for games.
>
> What percentage of games pkgs have bugs ?

I too would like some clarification on the standards being used.

> Marking all games 'unstable' still seems to be overkill.
>

To add to this, it is unlikely the situation will improve until it is
made easier for people to contribute. If one is not aware there is a
tendency for Gentoo-related issues to receive blog posts addressing
them, or to be passed down via word of mouth on IRC, or to be hidden
in a hard-to-find (and/or index) page of the Wiki.

The most likely explanation for this state of affairs is that getting
contributions accepted into the main tree is too hard.

It is one thing to say that contributions to the main Portage tree
require some standards to be upheld, but these standards do not seem
to be applied consistently. For example, crossdev, genkernel, and the
bootstrap-prefix and bootstrap-rap scripts are more or less
unmaintainable disasters. Crossdev in particular oscillates between
periods of relative stability and extreme brokenness, and the
bootstrap scripts are poorly explained with no extant documentation
and a workflow that does not clearly fit into Gentoo (or more properly
Portage) development at large. Other ebuilds may simply install low
quality software, or install software that is hard to manage with
Portage.

Respectfully,
     R0b0t1

Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: No more stable keywords for Games

[Jules Octave]

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can't affect me as I am not into games ; but I have tried some on kde ,
they seems to work fine.

2017-11-19 20:17 GMT+00:00 R0b0t1 <r030t1@gmail.com>:

> Hello friends!
>
> On Sun, Nov 19, 2017 at 12:45 PM, Philip Webb <purslow@ca.inter.net>
> wrote:
> > 171119 James Le Cuirot wrote:
> >> On Sun, 19 Nov 2017 08:50:20 -0500
> >> Philip Webb <purslow@ca.inter.net> wrote:
> >>> 171118 David Seifert wrote:
> >>>> As the Games team does not have enough manpower to keep tabs on all
> >>>> games packages, we have dropped all games-* ebuilds to unstable
> >>>> keywords (modulo those required by stable non-games packages).
> >>> Isn't this overkill in the absence of widespread bug reports for games
> ?
> >>> 'Stable' doesn't mean well-maintained,
> >>> but in the tree for some time & no serious bug reports.
> >> There are plenty of bug reports for games.
> >
> > What percentage of games pkgs have bugs ?
>
> I too would like some clarification on the standards being used.
>
> > Marking all games 'unstable' still seems to be overkill.
> >
>
> To add to this, it is unlikely the situation will improve until it is
> made easier for people to contribute. If one is not aware there is a
> tendency for Gentoo-related issues to receive blog posts addressing
> them, or to be passed down via word of mouth on IRC, or to be hidden
> in a hard-to-find (and/or index) page of the Wiki.
>
> The most likely explanation for this state of affairs is that getting
> contributions accepted into the main tree is too hard.
>
> It is one thing to say that contributions to the main Portage tree
> require some standards to be upheld, but these standards do not seem
> to be applied consistently. For example, crossdev, genkernel, and the
> bootstrap-prefix and bootstrap-rap scripts are more or less
> unmaintainable disasters. Crossdev in particular oscillates between
> periods of relative stability and extreme brokenness, and the
> bootstrap scripts are poorly explained with no extant documentation
> and a workflow that does not clearly fit into Gentoo (or more properly
> Portage) development at large. Other ebuilds may simply install low
> quality software, or install software that is hard to manage with
> Portage.
>
> Respectfully,
>      R0b0t1
>
>

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[gentoo-dev] Prefix bootstrap script maintainability (Was: No more stable keywords for Games)

[Benda Xu]

Greetings R0b0t1,

R0b0t1 <r030t1@gmail.com> writes:

> It is one thing to say that contributions to the main Portage tree
> require some standards to be upheld, but these standards do not seem
> to be applied consistently. For example, crossdev, genkernel, and the
> bootstrap-prefix and bootstrap-rap scripts are more or less
> unmaintainable disasters.
> [...]
> and the bootstrap scripts are poorly explained with no extant
> documentation and a workflow that does not clearly fit into Gentoo (or
> more properly Portage) development at large.

As one of the maintainers of the bootstrap-prefix (and bootstrap-rap), I
acknowledge that the script is a result of accumulated contributions
from multiple people, with rounds of refactorizations in the past
several years. But it is well understood and maintainable.

I would like to remind you that, the script is a reflection of the
instrinsic complexity to compile a workable Gentoo from zero, in a wild
variety of environments from handhold embedded devices to top 10
supercomputers, from GNU/Linux, MacOS to Solaris/OpenIndiana and Cygwin.

Don't be pissed off if it couldn't be hacked in several hours to be
ported to ppc64.  That's life: anything worth doing will not be easy.


For the standards and documentation, yes, the recommended workflow had
better be carved into stone.  That's where things should be improved.

Good luck
Benda

Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: No more stable keywords for Games

[NP-Hardass]

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On 11/19/2017 01:45 PM, Philip Webb wrote:
> 171119 James Le Cuirot wrote:
>> On Sun, 19 Nov 2017 08:50:20 -0500
>> Philip Webb <purslow@ca.inter.net> wrote:
>>> 171118 David Seifert wrote:
>>>> As the Games team does not have enough manpower to keep tabs on all
>>>> games packages, we have dropped all games-* ebuilds to unstable
>>>> keywords (modulo those required by stable non-games packages).
>>> Isn't this overkill in the absence of widespread bug reports for games ?
>>> 'Stable' doesn't mean well-maintained,
>>> but in the tree for some time & no serious bug reports.
>> There are plenty of bug reports for games.
> 
> What percentage of games pkgs have bugs ?
> 
> Eg I amuse myself with  games-puzzle/sgt-puzzles ;
> it is maintained upstream with regular updates.
> The only unresolved bug appears to be 602696
> which relates to version 20161207, which is no longer in the tree :
> why is the bug still marked 'confirmed' ?  Shouldn't it be 'resolved' ?
> 
> What justification is there for marking this pkg 'unstable' ?
> My guess is that there are other games pkgs with no valid bug.
> 
> Marking all games 'unstable' still seems to be overkill.
> 

I am going to add my +1 to overkill.

Firstly, we need to reclarify...  Games Project doesn't have exclusive
control over the games-* categories...  So, this should only apply to
packages that the games project controls.  The original message doesn't
really convey that.

Secondly, if the issue is Games Project, then if there is another
maintainer involved in maintaining a package, then the decision to drop
keywords should be mutual with the other maintainer, or Games should
consider dropping maintainership in deference to the other, active
maintainer.

Which brings me to the third point...  If the Games Project admits that
it doesn't have the manpower to maintain things, and is forcibly
dropping all stable keywords as part of their non-maintenance, I think
they should adopt a policy of allowing anyone to come in and take over
(and potentially remove them) from the package.  Someone else should be
able to vouch for and work for the stability and quality of a package
and take responsibility for it.  By Games Project being in the metadata,
it gives the false impression that they are responsible.

I'm the maintainer of games-puzzle/sgt-puzzles and while Games Project
is in the metadata, I'm really the primary maintainer.  I don't want my
stable keywords dropped.  You are welcome to drop your project from the
metadata, but please leave my package, and all those that others are
responsible for, alone.

-- 
NP-Hardass


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[gentoo-dev] Re: Prefix bootstrap script maintainability (Was: No more stable keywords for Games)

[R0b0t1]

Hello friends!

On Sun, Nov 19, 2017 at 6:54 PM, Benda Xu <heroxbd@gentoo.org> wrote:
> Greetings R0b0t1,
>
> R0b0t1 <r030t1@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> It is one thing to say that contributions to the main Portage tree
>> require some standards to be upheld, but these standards do not seem
>> to be applied consistently. For example, crossdev, genkernel, and the
>> bootstrap-prefix and bootstrap-rap scripts are more or less
>> unmaintainable disasters.
>> [...]
>> and the bootstrap scripts are poorly explained with no extant
>> documentation and a workflow that does not clearly fit into Gentoo (or
>> more properly Portage) development at large.
>
> As one of the maintainers of the bootstrap-prefix (and bootstrap-rap), I
> acknowledge that the script is a result of accumulated contributions
> from multiple people, with rounds of refactorizations in the past
> several years. But it is well understood and maintainable.
>
> I would like to remind you that, the script is a reflection of the
> instrinsic complexity to compile a workable Gentoo from zero, in a wild
> variety of environments from handhold embedded devices to top 10
> supercomputers, from GNU/Linux, MacOS to Solaris/OpenIndiana and Cygwin.
>

That is fine, but I am more talking about the burden of trying to
understand what is going on. Nowhere is there a simple list of steps
that the bootstrap scripts take. The code is sparsely commented and
intent is not readily inferred from context. Some of this is related
to the packages in question, and I can not expect the scripts to e.g.
summarize the autotools options passed to the respective software, but
justification for why what is taking place is taking place should have
been a priority.

The typical response of "read the code" (which I have read more than a
few places) indicates to me that someone does not value my time and
has not bothered to remember what they have done, or why. Besides the
insult to future contributors this train of thought reflects poorly on
the quality of the author's work and the esteem with which they hold
the fruits of their labor.

I feel this manifests as the original developers being unlikely to
contribute because they have lost track of the various interacting
components and would need to invest a substantial amount of time in
re-understanding their own work. There are other projects where I have
observed the main authors undertake what appear to be, at first
glance, very technical changes due to an offhand comment by a mailing
list user.

These projects all seem to have been well documented.

> Don't be pissed off if it couldn't be hacked in several hours to be
> ported to ppc64.  That's life: anything worth doing will not be easy.
>

Understanding an existing codebase should not be a technical
challenge. I had to resort to reimplementing all of the steps myself,
in part to understand if they were done properly in the first place.

In the case of the bootstrap scripts, minor problems are very hard to
diagnose because of limited feedback given, and the difficulty of
integrating what feedback is available into the overall setup process.

> For the standards and documentation, yes, the recommended workflow had
> better be carved into stone.  That's where things should be improved.
>

Unfortunately these are things that the original authors should
produce. Experience has shown me that documentation written by
ancillary contributors that do not have deep experience with the code
base is poor.

Respectfully,
     R0b0t1

Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Prefix bootstrap script maintainability (Was: No more stable keywords for Games)

[Sergei Trofimovich]

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On Sun, 19 Nov 2017 22:47:35 -0600
R0b0t1 <r030t1@gmail.com> wrote:

> Understanding an existing codebase should not be a technical
> challenge. I had to resort to reimplementing all of the steps myself,
> in part to understand if they were done properly in the first place.

Looks like you are an expert in this area now and are perfectly capable
of submitting the patches. I can review them at least for crossdev.

> Unfortunately these are things that the original authors should
> produce. Experience has shown me that documentation written by
> ancillary contributors that do not have deep experience with the code
> base is poor.

If you have invested some time to understand the code you and understood
at least something you should be perfectly capable of submitting a patch
to document a thing or two that took you time to grasp.

Nobody knows what is hard for you to understand except yourself.

-- 

  Sergei

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[gentoo-dev] Re: Prefix bootstrap script maintainability (Was: No more stable keywords for Games)

[R0b0t1]

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Hello friends!

On Monday, November 20, 2017, Sergei Trofimovich <slyfox@gentoo.org> wrote:
> On Sun, 19 Nov 2017 22:47:35 -0600
> R0b0t1 <r030t1@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Understanding an existing codebase should not be a technical
>> challenge. I had to resort to reimplementing all of the steps myself,
>> in part to understand if they were done properly in the first place.
>
> Looks like you are an expert in this area now and are perfectly capable
> of submitting the patches. I can review them at least for crossdev.
>

In my goal to understand bootstrap-rap I am still in the process of
creating something crossdev-like that can be used to generate a toolchain.

A recurring problem I have had is that this set of related tasks -
generating cross compilers and packages, generating an initramfs, or
generating a prefixed pseudoinstallation - all start by reimplementing some
subset of portage.

For prefix/RAP it makes sense, for the others possibly not.

>> Unfortunately these are things that the original authors should
>> produce. Experience has shown me that documentation written by
>> ancillary contributors that do not have deep experience with the code
>> base is poor.
>
> If you have invested some time to understand the code you and understood
> at least something you should be perfectly capable of submitting a patch
> to document a thing or two that took you time to grasp.
>

Yes, that is what I am doing with my own code as I have the time to write
it. I mostly still have no idea what is going on in the already written
code.

> Nobody knows what is hard for you to understand except yourself.
>

People will often find tasks similarly difficult. This is why I am
surprised documentation is lacking for specific projects, or, I suppose,
any software package that has ever been created.

Cheers,
    R0b0t1

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Prefix bootstrap script maintainability

[Benda Xu]

R0b0t1 <r030t1@gmail.com> writes:

> This is why I am surprised documentation is lacking for specific
> projects, or, I suppose, any software package that has ever been
> created.

No surprise.  There is always a gap between theory and practice.  

That said, I will prioritize myself to document the internals of Gentoo
Prefix.  Thank you for emphasizing this, you are acknowledged.

Benda

[gentoo-dev] Re: Prefix bootstrap script maintainability (Was: No more stable keywords for Games)

[Fabian Groffen]

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On 20-11-2017 11:53:32 -0600, R0b0t1 wrote:
> Hello friends!
> 
> On Monday, November 20, 2017, Sergei Trofimovich <[1]slyfox@gentoo.org> wrote:
> > On Sun, 19 Nov 2017 22:47:35 -0600
> > R0b0t1 <[2]r030t1@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >> Understanding an existing codebase should not be a technical
> >> challenge. I had to resort to reimplementing all of the steps myself,
> >> in part to understand if they were done properly in the first place.
> >
> > Looks like you are an expert in this area now and are perfectly capable
> > of submitting the patches. I can review them at least for crossdev.
> >
> 
> In my goal to understand bootstrap-rap I am still in the process of creating
> something crossdev-like that can be used to generate a toolchain.
> 
> A recurring problem I have had is that this set of related tasks - generating
> cross compilers and packages, generating an initramfs, or generating a prefixed
> pseudoinstallation - all start by reimplementing some subset of portage.
> 
> For prefix/RAP it makes sense, for the others possibly not.

You may also want to understand that cross-compiling (or compilers) in
itself is a very difficult topic to get right.  Mixing that with Prefix
FAICT never got out of the lab-setting in which it was attempted.

> >> Unfortunately these are things that the original authors should
> >> produce. Experience has shown me that documentation written by
> >> ancillary contributors that do not have deep experience with the code
> >> base is poor.

Like Benda said, documentation can always be improved.

In the case for bootstrap-prefix, it used to be documented in terms of
steps and why one had to do them that way.  Somewhere at the start of
2006, when there was like 150 packages, and one arch (ppc-macos), said
script didn't exist.  As it stands today, the key decisions and
workarounds are actually documented, but as RAP actually shows, if you
only focus on a specific use-case, you can get rid of a lot of (what
appears to be) nonsense.  It's the context in which you look at the
projects you refer to.

> Yes, that is what I am doing with my own code as I have the time to
> write it. I mostly still have no idea what is going on in the already
> written code.

Perhaps open up the dicussion on the related project's mailing lists.
At least I haven't come across any request to explain certain
bits/decisions yet.

Thanks,
Fabian

-- 
Fabian Groffen
Gentoo on a different level

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