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From: ludo@gnu.org (Ludovic Courtès)
To: Roel Janssen <roel@gnu.org>
Cc: guix-devel@gnu.org
Subject: Re: none
Date: Fri, 22 Jul 2016 18:13:14 +0200	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <87twfhirc5.fsf@gnu.org> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <87k2gexf4l.fsf@gnu.org> (Roel Janssen's message of "Fri, 22 Jul 2016 10:15:38 +0200")

Hi Roel,

Roel Janssen <roel@gnu.org> skribis:

> For the last twenty weeks or so I have started contributing packages to
> GNU Guix mainly because Pjotr gave me the opportunity to do so.  For me,
> upstreaming was part of the deal, and I'd say it has taken me at least
> two times the time it took me to write a proper package definition to
> get it in the upstream distribution.
>
> You've seen the mistakes I made, and the little syntactic things that
> kept going wrong over time.  Near the end of my internship, however, I
> saw a positive change: Reviewers actually make little changes, instead
> of leaving it up to the submitter to ``fix the indendation''.  This
> change makes the burden of reviewing smaller as well as the burden to
> submit a package.  Great!

Thanks for your feedback.

> One thing that really helped me in reducing the time to contribute
> changes to the upstream distribution, is to have a good workflow.  I
> ended up doing the following:
> 1. Make the changes.
> 2. Commit the changes.
> 3 git format-patch -1 --no-attach
> 4. git reset --hard <latest commit on origin/master>
> 5. Submit the patch to the mailing list
> 6. Wait for response and probably go back to 1.
>
> I made all of my changes on a GNU Guix git checkout.  So, not writing
> package definitions on a separate repository.

Do you think it would help to add this as a section in the manual?

>> But seriously, we should find other ways to encourage people. I wonder
>> how many packages are out there that never find their way into guix or
>> much too late. I wonder how much duplicate work is going on because of
>> our dance requirement. If it this hard *with* my experience in
>> packaging, how hard do you think it is for people *without*
>> experience. I know Dennis, for example, is sitting on a heap of opencl
>> packages which are incredibly useful to many people.
>>
>> I believe we have to change our ways.
>
> The problem is real.  I have taken contributing back to upstream _very_
> serious, and I haven't been able to get everything back into GNU Guix
> either.
>
> Packages I work(ed) on that haven't made it upstream (yet) due to
> ``imperfect'' patches:
> * MongoDB:    Bundled source code;
> * GParted:    The help function does not work without external
>               documentation database tool;

(I think it’s OK if GParted’s documentation isn’t available; that’s
probably the case for some other GNOME apps.)

> * FreeBayes:  At first, licensing issues, now just a plain ugly patch to
>               deal with the unbundling of its dependencies in the
>               Makefiles of this project;
> * VCFLib:     Same situation as FreeBayes.  To be honest, this package
>               would've not ended up as a separate package if I didn't
>               have to split up FreeBayes.  I consider this a positive
>               effect of the review process.

Recursive bundling?  Woow.  :-)

Bundling is definitely a difficulty.  I still think there are good
reasons to unbundle software, but there are also a few exceptions in the
packages we provide.

It might be that VCFLib or the things in bundles have practically no
other user, in which case bundling makes absolutely no difference.

So I’m guessing these might be acceptable as-is.

> Maybe we could create an online course to do packaging with GNU Guix and
> make it rewarding with a grading system and giving achievement points..
> That might make the incentive to make the upstreaming step of packaging
> more fun and more like a learning process rather than a recurrent PITA.
> (This is something I could spend time at..)

Sure.  Concrete suggestions like this often help more than rants!  :-)

Thank you,
Ludo’.

  parent reply	other threads:[~2016-07-22 16:13 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 102+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2016-07-21  1:39 (unknown) Unknown, Pjotr Prins
2016-07-21  1:42 ` [PATCH] gnu: Add elixir Pjotr Prins
2016-07-21 11:43   ` Ben Woodcroft
2016-07-21 12:00     ` Pjotr Prins
2016-07-22  5:26     ` Leo Famulari
2016-07-22 12:55       ` Ludovic Courtès
2016-07-22 14:12         ` Leo Famulari
2016-07-21 12:51 ` none Ludovic Courtès
2016-07-22  0:41   ` none Pjotr Prins
2016-07-22  2:06     ` none Pjotr Prins
2016-07-22  3:25       ` none Jookia
2016-07-22  3:48       ` none Leo Famulari
2016-07-22  4:48       ` none Tobias Geerinckx-Rice
2016-07-22 11:07         ` none Pjotr Prins
2016-07-22 12:23           ` none Ricardo Wurmus
2016-07-22 12:50             ` none Jookia
2016-07-22 21:19               ` none Leo Famulari
2016-07-24  4:17                 ` none Jookia
2016-07-24  6:35                   ` none Leo Famulari
2016-07-24  7:47                     ` none Jookia
2016-07-24 16:52               ` none Christopher Allan Webber
2016-07-24 17:03                 ` none Andreas Enge
2016-07-22  8:15     ` none Roel Janssen
2016-07-22 14:07       ` none Leo Famulari
2016-07-22 14:15         ` none Vincent Legoll
2016-07-22 16:13       ` Ludovic Courtès [this message]
2016-07-22 16:38         ` none myglc2
2016-07-23  7:03           ` none Tomáš Čech
2016-07-22 16:02     ` Review process Ludovic Courtès
2016-07-23  2:24       ` Pjotr Prins
2016-07-23  9:05         ` Alex Kost
2016-07-23  9:51           ` Mathieu Lirzin
2016-07-24  8:02             ` Alex Kost
2016-07-24 10:38               ` Mathieu Lirzin
2016-07-24 14:09               ` Ludovic Courtès
2016-07-24  3:30       ` A registry for distributed sources and binaries Pjotr Prins
2016-07-24  5:10         ` Tobias Geerinckx-Rice
2016-07-24  5:16           ` Pjotr Prins
2016-07-24  5:24         ` Pjotr Prins
2016-07-24  5:29         ` Mark H Weaver
2016-07-24  5:48           ` Jookia
2016-07-24  6:37             ` Tobias Geerinckx-Rice
2016-07-24  7:49               ` Jookia
2016-07-24 20:02             ` Ricardo Wurmus
2016-07-24  6:28           ` Tobias Geerinckx-Rice
2016-07-24  7:02             ` Pjotr Prins
2016-07-24  7:29           ` Leo Famulari
2016-07-24  7:41             ` Pjotr Prins
2016-07-24  9:50           ` Mathieu Lirzin
2016-07-24 22:46           ` Ludovic Courtès
2016-07-24 13:58         ` Andreas Enge
2016-07-24 15:21           ` Jookia
2016-07-24 15:58             ` Andreas Enge
2016-07-24 17:18             ` replying to a message of a mailing list you were not subscribed to Danny Milosavljevic
2016-07-24 17:25               ` Danny Milosavljevic
2016-07-25  5:38                 ` Ricardo Wurmus
2016-07-25  7:34                   ` icecat "mailto" handler does not work - and cannot be reconfigured by user Danny Milosavljevic
2020-10-13 13:23                     ` bug#24066: " Maxim Cournoyer
2016-07-24 18:50             ` A registry for distributed sources and binaries John Darrington
2016-07-25  9:14             ` Replying to bug reports Ludovic Courtès
2016-07-25  8:25           ` A registry for distributed sources and binaries Andy Wingo
2016-07-25 22:00             ` Reviewer assignment Ludovic Courtès
2016-07-24 20:35         ` A registry for distributed sources and binaries Ricardo Wurmus
2016-07-25  2:10           ` Pjotr Prins
2016-07-25  3:42             ` Tobias Geerinckx-Rice
2016-07-25  4:57               ` Pjotr Prins
2016-07-25  7:18           ` Tomáš Čech
2016-07-25  9:21           ` Ludovic Courtès
2016-07-26  3:40             ` Pjotr Prins
2016-07-26  3:45               ` Pjotr Prins
2016-07-25  6:13 ` [PATCH] Add Elixir (was: ) Ricardo Wurmus
2016-07-25  6:31   ` Pjotr Prins
2016-07-28  7:27     ` Ricardo Wurmus
2016-07-28  8:30       ` Vincent Legoll
2016-07-28 10:35       ` Pjotr Prins
2016-07-28 20:35         ` Ricardo Wurmus
2016-07-29  2:38           ` Pjotr Prins
2016-07-29  6:32             ` Vincent Legoll
2016-08-02  8:56             ` Ricardo Wurmus
2016-08-02 14:30               ` Pjotr Prins
2016-08-02  8:44     ` [PATCH] Add Elixir Ricardo Wurmus
2016-08-02 14:29       ` Pjotr Prins
2016-08-02 17:26       ` Ludovic Courtès
2016-08-02 21:25         ` Ricardo Wurmus
2016-08-03  4:41           ` Pjotr Prins
2016-08-09 11:18           ` Pjotr Prins
2016-08-09 11:58             ` Alex Sassmannshausen
  -- strict thread matches above, loose matches on Subject: below --
2016-07-23  9:15 none David Craven
2015-03-25 22:49 (unknown), Tomáš Čech
2015-03-26 21:22 ` none Ludovic Courtès
2015-03-26 21:52   ` none Tomáš Čech
2014-12-03 18:02 (unknown) Tomas Cech
2014-12-04 23:04 ` none Ludovic Courtès
2014-12-05  8:35   ` none Tomas Cech
2014-12-06 14:06     ` none Ludovic Courtès
2014-02-11 22:17 Gnunet-0.10.0 recipe Sree Harsha Totakura
2014-02-12 15:15 ` (unknown), Sree Harsha Totakura
2014-02-12 17:36   ` none Ludovic Courtès
2014-02-12 17:38     ` none Sree Harsha Totakura
2014-02-12 19:25     ` none Andreas Enge
2014-02-12 20:30       ` none Ludovic Courtès
2014-02-12 20:53         ` none Andreas Enge
2014-02-04 15:12 (unknown), John Darrington
2014-02-04 20:47 ` none Ludovic Courtès
2014-02-05 16:17   ` none Mark H Weaver
2014-02-05 17:38     ` none John Darrington
2014-02-05 18:35       ` none Ludovic Courtès

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