[linux-distros-dev] A bit of a reboot

[Andrew Overholt <overholt@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi,

As you all know, our project hasn't really been a shining example of
output or participation.  I'd like to change that.  What follows are my
thoughts.  I'd appreciate comments/criticisms/ideas/whatever.

Reasons for existence / Goals
=============================
We started the project after a few different distribution maintainers
found that they were complaining about the same things (builds being
difficult, lack of autotools support in CDT, package maintenance
difficulties, etc.).  The goals at the time were two-fold:  1) be a
place for distributions to collaborate and 2) provide tools specific to
Linux developers and packagers.

Current status
==============
We have some Linux-specific tools that are doing well:  the ChangeLog
plugin and the RPM specfile editor.  Jeff Johnston has also told me that
he plans on contributing his autotools plugins.  There's also some
renewed interest in the OProfile plugin which I'm hoping we'll see some
patches for soon.  So we're not doing *too* badly on providing tools.

Unfortunately, little cross-distro collaboration has actually taken
place.  I'd like to think this is because we all have lots to deal with
in real life and in our respective distros.  What can do to improve
here?  Since we all fight the same battles with builds and stuff, it
would be good to work together and not duplicate effort.

I think we need to do a few things:

1. Make an update site for the tools we have.
2. Have an actual release!  Then we won't be the bad Eclipse project who
   never really followed the processes :)
3. Re-focus on our goals.

To be honest, I think the tools half of our project is doing alright.
We just need to follow some processes a bit more.  It's the distro
collaboration stuff that needs to be improved.  I think the project that
Ben Konrath started -- eclipse-build -- is a good place for this.
Ideally we can get to the point where that project produces a buildable
source tarball that all distros can use.  We can probably aim for the
Ganymede winter maintenance release.  It will take care of the stuff we
all do on top of the releng srcIncluded drops.  Also, we can share our
common methods of building non-SDK plugins.  Scripts to run test suites
are also a good place to work together.

We need to have a plan in place soon so I'll be working on something
more formal than this email.  I really welcome all feedback so please
let me know whatever you're thinking -- even if it's "you're stupid" ;) .

Andrew



Hi,

As you all know, our project hasn't really been a shining example of output or participation.  I'd like to change that.  What follows are my thoughts.  I'd appreciate comments/criticisms/ideas/whatever.

Reasons for existence / Goals
=============================
We started the project after a few different distribution maintainers found that they were complaining about the same things (builds being difficult, lack of autotools support in CDT, package maintenance difficulties, etc.).  The goals at the time were two-fold:  1) be a place for distributions to collaborate and 2) provide tools specific to Linux developers.  We sort of expanded a bit afterwards to also be a bit of a clearing house for