On Wednesday 29 September 2010 21:17:45 Dave Plater wrote:

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Hi, I've been trying to submit an svn derived version of KTrafficAnalyzer to KDE:Extra, the package used to be in the old kde3 community repo and has been around in openSUSE for quite a while. It's been ported to kde4. I've been using the package from the authors home project and it occasionally crashed and lost the usage stats but after my recent update from KDE:Distro:Factory it consistently segfaulted on start up. This is a good thing that enabled me to track down the problem and patch it. It's now stable on a patched svn revision 44 so I decided to submit this very usefull package to KDE:Extra and am quite happy to maintain it as I use it all the time and it's a simple package only to have it rejected on the grounds that it's svn derived. This seems a bit stupid because the released package is unstable and even has a source forge bug against it from an openSUSE 11.3 user. I've had problems submitting a package fix to KDE:Extra before but in that case the maintainers reply was rather rude that issue was simply bad communication and was resolved and that particular maintainer accepted my second submit attempt of KTrafficAnalyzer pointing out that there wasn't a Url: in the spec file and asking me to fix it. I decided to patch the released tarball to svn 44 and submit that along with the fixed spec file but alas the first anti subversion maintainer caught the request and declined it. I was under the assumption that I'm helping to make openSUSE a better distribution but my encounters with KDE:Extra have made me think that that particular repository is an ego circus, it's easier to get a new package into Factory than into KDE:Extra, I've two new packages in 11.3 one of them totally new to openSUSE and one that the previous maintainer didn't have time for so it was dropped so I speak from experience. The point of this email are the questions :- am I flogging a dead horse trying to be a useful member of the community? Why do I get the impression that KDE:Extra is maintained a an exclusive club? Thanks for taking the time to read my rant. Dave P

Hi,

First, I was the one who sent a rejection about the missing URL.. It is more important than a simple single line. I'm glad you picked it up, I usually use the url in the spec file to visit the home page of a package partially to find out it exists. A Url: in the spec file is a must and you responded to the request in the same manner that I would have. My gripe is about being directed from the first sr which was declined because the packages source tarball "appeared to be derived from svn. As a reviewer, I feel _strongly_ I have an obligation to ensure I and others can verify independently the all source code going into the distro, Factory, Contrib or in popular community repos like KDE:Extras. In fact today I filed an enhancement to automatically check for this in rpmlint used by OBS: https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=642588

What I remind people when they are packaging stuff for the distro, especially when a novice is: "You are taking root, even oh so breifly, on a _lot_ of people's systems... proceed accordingly." Poor packaging is a very quick way to destroy the reputation of the openSUSE community and the distro. Now, OBS is brilliant in that it has automated a good deal of grunt work in the QA department, but still it takes a certain level of skill and applied policy to QA the end esults. Remeber the rule: Garbage In > Garbage Out...

One has to note Debian has a very solid reputation in this regard, even if one can debate some of their policies/techniques... They are _really_ strict about packaging and because of that they have a pretty high level of trust in the open source world.

Now, the second part has nothing to do with ego, but more a commonly agreed policy by the KDE:Extras maintainers, of which I am one, to not put any svn snapshots into Extras, but the place for those is KDE:Playground. Seems to me a sensible rule in general. Confusing stable with svn is a mistake. The released version of this

On 09/29/2010 09:58 PM, P Linnell wrote: package is unstable, my patched svn version is stable. The only package that I maintain but don't use is lilypond. My criteria and what should be the main criteria is ensuring that packages published in reputable repos should be stable. The other important criteria is the components that comprise the package are of a consistent make up and the standard used is clearly documented so as the package can be maintained by any competent maintainer if need be, I might drop dead tomorrow and my unmaintained packages wouldn't be noticed until something went wrong. The only way to ensure a stable package is for that package to be used. For that to happen the package either has to be a well known and well used opensource package or it has to be discovered, failing this it needs to be put through it's paces by the person responsible for it's bugs. Sorry about the long winded qualifier of "Confusing stable with svn is a mistake".

As there is always room for well justified exceptions to rules, in this case, the best way to proceed would have been to mail the kde list or visit #opensuse-kde on IRC, before submitting and ask for an exception and explain the facts as above, as both Raymond, I or others would have most certainly followed up with questions or comments. The way it was presented to us via OBS, was missing this important info, naturally we would reject an SR like that. I've learned that Raymond is also a pretty skilled packager and he has done a ton of work to make the KDE repos really solid and offers end users a wide range of options to run the latest bleeding edge stuff or polished stable stuff.

I've had frustrating time with build service quirks in the osc source validator and long 24 hour publishing delays but maybe the main problem is that I tend to keep to myself. This is a chance for me to introduce myself.

I for one would never dismiss your efforts to contribute to the distro. I know you have done a lot of bug fixes all over the place, so no issue there. What we have here is a simple issue of mis-communication or clash of communication styles. nothing more. I suspect you do not visit IRC often as it is another important channel of communication for members to hash out these kinds of things... I hope you can join us there when time allows as well.... We're all a pretty friendly bunch. :)

I'm not that familiar with irc unfortunately and my only serious attempt at communication with the core testing team of which I'm a non practicing member atm was met by either silence or there was some strange quirk in the irc client I was using.

I hope that puts some clarity on why things were done the way they were... Nothing evil... just good folks misunderstanding things...

Peter

I was met with miscommunication when I first tried to submit a fixed yawp to KDE:Extra and another policy I couldn't understand, it was rejected because I had included a sub package to be used in case of bugs which are very hard to troubleshoot in plasmoids and these "unittest" binaries would make it a lot easier to find if the bug was kde or yawp related. I'll give the irc a try again but the reason for this message is to promote a discussion about version controlled packages being stable. It gets lonely out here, would be nice if someone visiting Cape Town looks me up, I seem to be the only one with an openSUSE T shirt. Dave P -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-packaging+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-packaging+help@opensuse.org

On 09/30/2010 02:33 PM, Michal Marek wrote:

On 29.9.2010 21:17, Dave Plater wrote:

...

I've had problems submitting a package fix to KDE:Extra before but in that case the maintainers reply was rather rude that issue was simply bad communication and was resolved and that particular maintainer accepted my second submit attempt of KTrafficAnalyzer pointing out that there wasn't a Url: in the spec file and asking me to fix it. I decided to patch the released tarball to svn 44 and submit that along with the fixed spec file but alas the first anti subversion maintainer caught the request and declined it. I was under the assumption that I'm helping to make openSUSE a better distribution but my encounters with KDE:Extra have made me think that that particular repository is an ego circus [...]

Hi David,

I think what you describe is just an issue of communication, I wouldn't draw any conclusions here. Yes the policy or best current practice is to package released versions, but if the latest release does not work at all and the fix is only in svn, then it makes sense to break the policy. But what you should definitely do is to document why are you doing this, e.g. put into the *.changes file and the submit request message:

• Updated to svn rev 1234, because the latest release segfaults on startup.
  • Includes several other bugfixes
  • Adds <feature 1> and <feature 2>
  • Improves <feature 3>

If your request gets declined _again_, _then_ there is really something wrong with the maintainer team :).

Just my two cents, I'm not involved in KDE:Extra. Michal

Yes I wasn't in the best of moods after submitting the new package and maybe I wasn't polite enough explaining to the first maintainer that the release crashes and the submitted svn package works. I wrote this email after the package had been accepted by another maintainer who pointed out that there wasn't a url in the spec file. When I submitted the update with url the first maintainer caught the request and blindly declined it. Dave P -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-packaging+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-packaging+help@opensuse.org

On 10/01/2010 08:55 AM, Stefan Seyfried wrote:

Hi Dave,

On Wed, 29 Sep 2010 21:17:45 +0200 Dave Plater <davejplater@gmail.com> wrote:

...

I've had problems submitting a package fix to KDE:Extra before but in that case the maintainers reply was rather rude that issue was simply bad communication and was resolved and that particular maintainer accepted my second submit attempt of KTrafficAnalyzer pointing out that there wasn't a Url: in the spec file and asking me to fix it. I decided to patch the released tarball to svn 44 and submit that along with the fixed spec file but alas the first anti subversion maintainer caught the request and declined it.

hehe ;-)

...

I was under the assumption that I'm helping to make openSUSE a better distribution but my encounters with KDE:Extra have made me think that that particular repository is an ego circus, it's easier to get a new package into Factory than into KDE:Extra,

<sarcasm> This is because of the known perfectness of all the KDE packages in the distribution, which always get shipped without bugs, thus the need to keep unqualified contributors out to not lessen the overall product quality. </sarcasm>

(The KDE guys know me, so the above paragraph should not surprise them, and they can hit me on the head on the oS Conf anyway ;-)

I don't know KDE:Extra in particular, but almost every repository is some kind of ego trip of somebody. I found out when I tried to fix ~50 packages in devel:languages:$_$>$<$| (name changed to protect the guilty), where I was (politely, though) told, that I have to obey the powers that be, submit them one by one, have to use $SPECIAL_TOOL_FOR_CREATING_AND_CLEANING_UP_SPECFILES (which I had already done where appropriate, even though I had to fix that tool first...), how to tie my shoes and how to package in general. As if I did not know that since a decade (almost, I'm exaggerating as always). So I decided that I rather do that once I have spare time, because the fixed packages are living well one of my home repos, no urgent need to push them upstream.

But I digress.

The only exception to that "my repo is my castle and I am the absolute ruler on it" is Base:System which is so big that nobody is really able to police it. Just try to get your package into Base:System. (Just kidding.)

Now serious: Writing here was a good first step. People will notice and even the one maintainer who was a bit quick with rejecting your submissions will know the reasoning now. With only build service submit requests, it is sometimes hard to discuss the issues, a mailing list is much better for that. In general, a "no version updates for stable products" (I don't know how KDE:Extras fits here, but I think it is also some kind of semi-official add-on-repo for additional KDE packages) policy is useful. But with a good reason: "shipped version is clearly broken, a backport of the fix is not possible with reasonable efforts (means: it's not a trivial fix) and the package is a leaf package which means this update does not cause us to rebuild half of the other packages in the repo", this should be possible.

Hey, I've been able to get BlueZ version updates past coolo in almost-RC state, so there is a way to do it :-)

...

I've two new packages in 11.3 one of them totally new to openSUSE and one that the previous maintainer didn't have time for so it was dropped so I speak from experience. The point of this email are the questions :- am I flogging a dead horse trying to be a useful member of the community? Why do I get the impression that KDE:Extra is maintained a an exclusive club?

Maybe right now, it is an exclusive club. But there is no reason for you not being part of that club. And I'm pretty sure: once they know that you are doing a good job with your package, they will be much less restrictive on what they allow.

I mean - there's always a personal note to that packaging thing, because it is also some kind of a "ring of trust": there are people out there whose submitrequests to "my" packages I accept almost without looking at the diff (usually I only look at it to find out which strange thing they tried, and which caused them to find a bug, that I did not try ;) and there are the "unknown" (to me) contributors, where I look more thoroughly what they are doing. This might be unjust to the "unknowns", and in reality the numbers of rejected submissions from "knowns" and "unknowns" is in the same order, so they are of comparable "quality", but I think it is just natural that you give "friends" some credit.

(BTW: this is probably also true for my above rant about my submissions to that devel:languages:... project: I'm not really known for packaging those modules, so it's quite natural that I got the "new contributor"-lecture first.)

...

Thanks for taking the time to read my rant.

Nothing better to read than a good rant at the early morning ;-)

Have fun, and good luck with your package

I made my peace with the kde team via irc and the working ktafficanalyser is now in KDE:Extra. KDE:Extra it turns out is supposed to be a repo for packages as stable as the main distro and you can't just submit new packages unanounced, much the same as when you submit to factory from your devel project you announce on the kde list. Only difference is their packages come in from the wild not through a buffer devel project. Maybe some good will come from all this such as maintainers being a little bit more sensitive to submiters feelings ie. "would you please remove the full stop from your spec file summary and resubmit" instead of "your package has rpmlint errors". My first totally new package submission to factory was rejected with the message to read the web page relating to submissions to factory which I did and now I know what's required. One thing that has come to mind is maybe the multimedia:apps and libs team should have meetings every now and again. ATM I look at the primary maintainer of a package before I fiddle with it and if I know that person to be an active maintainer the most I'll do is email him if neccessary. I've just discovered that libraw1394 is over two years and somewhere around 100 version points old, only because of the new ffado package for jack firewire support. Multimedia suits me because of my background in arcade games and I'm vocalist / drummer in a band with lots of musician / sound engineer friends, I'd hate to be a project maintainer in KDE:Extra because the only way to be sure a package is stable is for it to be used by many in many different environments. I wouldn't have time for anything else. Part of the reason for me losing a bit of patience was that I'm busy trying to get blender-2.54 beta 2 to build and a few other projects and I researched and tested ktrafficanalyzer a lot prior to submission so I was quite taken aback when it was declined. One thing about your packages, if you use them you;ll find out pretty quickly if something goes wrong and your machine won't start. Regards Dave P -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-packaging+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-packaging+help@opensuse.org