Package test service for GNU maintainers

Package test service for GNU maintainers

[Ludovic Courtès]

Hello!

As a part of a discussion about “cool features for GNU maintainers” at
the GHM, someone (Andreas, IIRC) suggested having a service (possibly a
Web service) that would allow maintainers to upload their (pre)release
tarballs and then get some feedback:

  • If the package is not available in the distro, it would just say
    “sorry, your package is not available in the distro, but you can
    help!”.  Something like that.  ;-)

  • If the package is available, it would do something equivalent to
    ‘guix build foo --with-source=foo.tar.gz’ and eventually return the
    build result.

    Upon success, it could also return a generated patch that can be
    sent to guix-devel for inclusion.

    It could also use something similar to ‘guix refresh
    --list-dependent’ to try building dependent packages, or at least
    tell the maintainer to check them.

I think we have most of the tools to do that, and it may be a good way
to entice GNU maintainers into contributing to Guix.  Since it’s a
lightweight process, we could suggest to make it a recommendation in the
maintainer’s guide.

Thoughts?  Who want to give it a go?  :-)

Thanks,
Ludo’.

Re: Package test service for GNU maintainers

[Jason Self]

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Since GNU maintainers (in theory) already upload their stuff to
ftp.gnu.org or alpha.gnu.org using that file triplet it might be nice
if something could be worked into their existing workflow. Perhaps new
commands in the directive file to do the things you describe? This
would probably require coordinating with the FSF sysadmin.

Perhaps, in time, the things you describe could be even done by
default when new things are uploaded, since (I think) maintainers get
emails about stuff they upload anyway it seems like a good time to
include the output of the stuff you described?

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Re: Package test service for GNU maintainers

[Ludovic Courtès]

"Jason Self" <jason@bluehome.net> skribis:

> Since GNU maintainers (in theory) already upload their stuff to
> ftp.gnu.org or alpha.gnu.org using that file triplet it might be nice
> if something could be worked into their existing workflow. Perhaps new
> commands in the directive file to do the things you describe? This
> would probably require coordinating with the FSF sysadmin.

Indeed, that sounds even better, if the sysadmins agree with the
proposal.

Ludo’.

Re: Package test service for GNU maintainers

[John Darrington]

On Sun, Aug 17, 2014 at 04:53:52PM +0200, Ludovic Court??s wrote:
     Hello!
     
     As a part of a discussion about ???cool features for GNU maintainers??? at
     the GHM, someone (Andreas, IIRC) suggested having a service (possibly a
     Web service) that would allow maintainers to upload their (pre)release
     tarballs and then get some feedback:
     
       ??? If the package is not available in the distro, it would just say
         ???sorry, your package is not available in the distro, but you can
         help!???.  Something like that.  ;-)
     
       ??? If the package is available, it would do something equivalent to
         ???guix build foo --with-source=foo.tar.gz??? and eventually return the
         build result.
     
         Upon success, it could also return a generated patch that can be
         sent to guix-devel for inclusion.
     
         It could also use something similar to ???guix refresh
         --list-dependent??? to try building dependent packages, or at least
         tell the maintainer to check them.
     
     I think we have most of the tools to do that, and it may be a good way
     to entice GNU maintainers into contributing to Guix.  Since it???s a
     lightweight process, we could suggest to make it a recommendation in the
     maintainer???s guide.
     
     Thoughts?  Who want to give it a go?  :-)
     
I could give it a go.

However there are a couple of things which are of concern.

1. The way you describe it above, would it not be considered SaaS ?

2. By default, guix does not check that out-of-source builds are functional.
   "make distcheck" on the other-hand does.  Do we want to duplicate the function
   of "make distcheck"?  Perhaps we do, since I have recently seen a rather bad
   GNU release where it obviously wasn't run.

3. Should we check too that a package behaves sanely when cross-compiling?

4. Some years ago, somebody knocked up a similar "GNU package linter" and ran
   it on all GNU packages.  One maintainer got very shitty about a "deficiency"
   that was detected - started demanding an apology, blah, blah blah ...

J'



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Re: Package test service for GNU maintainers

[Jason Self]

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John Darrington asked:
> The way you describe it above, would it not be considered SaaS?

No, assuming it's running on FSF/GNU equipment: Then the GNU Project
is doing its own computing on its own machines. This is one reason I
liked the idea of somehow integrating this into the existing FTP
upload process. A separate process could also work but I do like the
idea of making it easy for maintainers to use (i.e., reducing steps,
minimizing workflow changes, etc.)

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Re: Package test service for GNU maintainers

[Ludovic Courtès]

John Darrington <john@darrington.wattle.id.au> skribis:

> I could give it a go.

Cool!

> 2. By default, guix does not check that out-of-source builds are functional.
>    "make distcheck" on the other-hand does.  Do we want to duplicate the function
>    of "make distcheck"?  Perhaps we do, since I have recently seen a rather bad
>    GNU release where it obviously wasn't run.

That’s not the goal here.  The goal would just be to make sure that the
package can be integrated in the distro.

> 3. Should we check too that a package behaves sanely when cross-compiling?

Perhaps, yes.

> 4. Some years ago, somebody knocked up a similar "GNU package linter" and ran
>    it on all GNU packages.  One maintainer got very shitty about a "deficiency"
>    that was detected - started demanding an apology, blah, blah blah ...

Was it the CI service at hydra.nixos.org that Rob Vermaas and I got
started?  :-)

I think here we’re aiming for something much more focused, which is
integration of (pre)releases in the distro.

Ludo’.