Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

sm-discuss - Re: [SM-Discuss] Having fun with SourceMage!

sm-discuss AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Public SourceMage Discussion List

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: Michael Taylor <tcm AT adelphia.net>
  • To: sm-discuss AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [SM-Discuss] Having fun with SourceMage!
  • Date: Wed, 11 Dec 2002 18:26:55 -0500

The proposal suits me. It is my belief that we will *never* have a grimoire
debugged to the point where we can give it to any newbie and expect them to
build any random spells they wish without a problem. The version "1.0"
implies some amount of completeness, which I feel we will never have.
For one thing it's not practical to even try very hard to do it: we have
limited manpower, and keeping up with the new releases and blocker-grade
bugs seems to be more than enough for everyone's plate right now.
Second, it just doesn't seem to be in the "spirit" of Source Mage to even
have this many grimoires. I recall the DistroWatch article that had me
wiping off Linux From Scratch that very night and downloading Kyle Sallee's
ISO. The author interpreted Source Mage as being for the power users who
knew what they wanted (and didn't want) and who understood the volatile
nature of Open Source development. If I remember the quote correctly: "You
have to trust the original developers to let you know when code is stable."
Those who are willing to give this trust and who are able to troubleshoot
the myriad problems caused by this trust were Sorcerer's target audience.
Third, we lack the infrastructure of e.g. Gentoo. They are the Red Hat of
the source-based distros: they make many choices for you for the sake of
having something that anybody can install, but to do so they have to host
all of their software on their own servers. Just like Red Hat, they have
releases like "samba-2.2.6-12.tar.gz": release 12 of whatever scripted make
process is used for samba 2.2.6, and they have their entire user base
downloading all of their source from them. That's probably more bandwidth
than we could get.
Fourth, the assumptions that will have to be made to patch up a grimoire to
1.0 status bother the heck out of me. You know that Joe Schmoe isn't going
to know how to change setting X so you have the script do it for him. This
has already occurred in Source Mage and while I appreciate many instances
of it, some of them are directly contrary to how I want the system set up,
and it's a pain in the butt to undo the changes. The best examples of this
that I can think of are the hard-coded runlevel numberings on services.
Finally, I suspect that a little bit of ego is involved in the push for
1.0. We are the middle children resulting from the schism of Lunar Penguin,
and they announced 1.0 only a couple of months after they started. While I
haven't even seen Lunar in months, I would be very surprised if they have
their grimoires ("moonbases" IIRC) debugged to the point that one can
install with impunity.
Personally I like Autocad's method: "release 10", "release 11", etc. I say
we get rid of the notion of a "stable" grimoire entirely and just call it
"current". We also should make it a lot easier for spell changes to get out
of the devel grimoire. If a spell builds and a sorcery rebuild succeeds
afterwards, then I'm willing to trust it in test.

At 16:53 12/11/2002 +0100, Eric Schabell wrote:
>Howdy all!
>
>I have been talking with the core team (as in Team Leaders) for the last few
>days about what the next steps are to be and have come up with the following
>ideas that I would like to get moving as we come up to the end of this year.
>
>I make the following proposal based on allot of observations from the last
>few months:
>
>Aside of the matter of who leads what, I would like to make a proposal that
> we drop the drive for a 1.0 release and the whole idea that we want to push
> for a distribution that MUST have releases and release dates.
>
>(*don't panic yet, I am going somewhere with this)
>
>I remember getting into this distro because I wanted it to live on so that I
>could use it, not so that I would become a thing that the whole world needs
>to use. I see our biggest obstacle being that we try to make a distro release
>w/o a real complete and dedicated team. This is not a bad thing, but
>something we need to identify and make work for us. Why not continue to
>develope and EVENTUALLY release a 1.0 and onwards as it happens? It seems
>that we will always have setbacks where developers have to leave key
>positions so lets release some of the stress and make those positions easier
>to fill.
>
>I will continue on as Project Leader if this is the case..... my call
>to you is basically to change our vision from trying to become something for
>the masses, to becoming our own distro. A playground that we all enjoy
>maintaining, coaxing it along at whatever pace we can provide, taking any
>help offered and above all having fun using what we have created!
>
>This is an idea I can stand behind and give voice to. If there are others who
>feel that we need to go another way then I would have to say that I am not
>available to lead it. This is what we have discussed and the rest of the
>Project Leaders are behind me on this. I would like to post this today and
>list a few action points for the rest of the month so that we can get back on
>track.
>
>I would like to ask all of you to discuss this for the coming week (I will be
>out of country from 13 Dec 2002 - 17 Dec 2002), get it all out of your system
>on sm-discuss list so I can view it when I get back.
>
>I am currently slowly getting a transition from Ryan with passwords and such.
>When that is done I will contact the necessary people to provide access where
>needed. This will take time, so please have patience.
>
>As for the team, I have made the adjustments to the Wiki Organization Chart,
>it now shows who is PL, Sorcery Lead, and Grimoire Lead with separate entries
>for the various Grimoire Maintainers. At this time I am making contact to
>move some developers up from Assist positions to Leads, so watch the chart
>for changes and I will announce things as much as possible to sm-discuss
>list. I would like to have the transition complete by 01 Jan 2003, a fresh
>start so to speak.
>
>OK, now for operational matters, 22 Dec 2002, Sunday meeting on #smgl-admin
> at the usual time of 1800 GMT. I will have to post the subjet matter at a
> later date, but it will be posted to sm-discuss after I get back and have
> had time to take into account the communities reactions. I plan to move the
> meeting schedule back to 1x per month inline with the new philosophy "Having
> fun with SourceMage!"
>
>The only thing left to say is thank you for hanging in there, and I hope we
>can get back to enjoying what we are doing with Source Mage as it is becoming
>something to be really proud about!
>
>For those that I will not be able to speak with, have a good holiday season,
>play safe on New Years and see you after the holidays.
>
>--
>/*
> * Eric D. Schabell M.Sc.
> * Project Lead Source Mage GNU/Linux
> * SourceMage: http://www.sourcemage.org
> * Shopping: http://www.cafeshops.com/cp/store.aspx?s=sourcemage.0
> * irc.openprojects.net (#sourcemage)
> * nick -> erics
> *
> * PGP Key 1024D/F2066C32
> * Key available at http://infolab.uvt.nl/people/erics/pgpkey
> */
>
>_______________________________________________
>SM-Discuss mailing list
>SM-Discuss AT lists.ibiblio.org
>http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/sm-discuss
>
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Michael Taylor
tcm AT adelphia.net
ICQ: 1938799
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-





Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page