Public SourceMage Discussion List

[seth AT swoolley.homeip.net]

On Fri, Jan 12, 2007 at 12:09:12AM +0100, Stephan Erb wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> You asked for more user feedback and here you go. I don't want to be
> offensive but just let you know what I think and what experiences I make
>  using SGML.
> 
> 1) stable, stable-rc, testing and whatever
> Why should I use your stable-tree? It's outdated and I cannot be sure
> whether all security fixes make it into the grimoire. (You don't fix old
>  software like the debian-sec-team does). Therefore it would be a real
> risk to run it an a productive machine and stupidity to run it on a
> desktop system. And whoever needs it for a PC with no connection to the
> Internet would profit much more if you can offer him working
> "testing-snapshots" regularly.

Security updates do go into stable.  I used to do this very regularly 
and sent out official announcements.  Somebody else took over that role, 
and it hasn't been the same since then.  I'll probably be doing this 
again shortly if enough people want it.

Most smgl admins have a limited number of web-facing apps and security 
issues so they don't really run into problems.  Plus, with layered 
security, i've never heard of anybody getting broken into.

> 
> Just looking at my MailBox I can see that even you, the developers,
> don't care about stable. (408 commits to master grimoire vs 93 to
> stable(-rc)).

commits aren't a good measure, since rollup commits to stable-rc are 
done frequently.

> I propose you to drop it! OpenSource works much better if you do it for
> you, not for a possible but almost non-existing user.
> If you want you can switch back to this development model if you have
> more resources, but currently it doesn't work well.

The problem was only one person was doing it for a while and when that 
person ran into RL constraints nobody else found time to do it.  The 
"test" grimoire is the Open Source(TM) model that you so love.  Just 
stick to that if you want that.

When I was working as a sysadmin at a medical clinic, I was pretty much 
the only person sheparding stable grimoire, and I spent a lot of time on 
the job maintaining it since we only ran tested code in production.  Now 
that I'm in a different job, it's a lot more difficult to multitask it 
now.  The "scratch your own itch" thing has worked out for us to that 
extent.

> 
> 2) Not sure if it is possible but incremental grimoire update would be
> perfect. The download takes up to 5-6 minutes because of the slow server
> -connection. (using 2mbit connection, yes i have netselect installed and
> enabled)

We have rsync support and git support for the grimoire.  They did work 
last I checked.  I put a lot of effort into getting rsync working.

> 
> 3) prompt-delay
> There are questions that should never be skipped due to this delay. Lets
> assume I cast several spells. I would not have a look at the
> install/compile log, if everything works fine. Therefore I reduce the
> delay not to waste time.
> But very often I miss the important configure questions due to the slow
> update (see above) or because I don't like to sit here for three hours
> to wait for a possible need to interact running cleanse.

Prompts should all be front-loaded before building.  If they are not, it 
is a bug.  That's been an official policy for years.

> 
> 4) creating own packages
> It is so easy to create own spells but so frustrating to get them into
> the grimoire. I stopped offering my own spells because I once did and
> there was so little reaction. Why should I bother you.

Get a git account.  We pretty much give anybody who wants access to test 
grimoire.  If you're depending on somebody to put it in for you, let 
somebody else know if they are not responding on IRC, they can often get 
it in in minutes.

> 
> 5) reporting bugs
> Bugs can occur everywhere. Nobody should be blamed. But it would be nice
> if you could offer a better bug-reporting-system.
> Bugzilla looks so old and doesn't invite to work with. In addition all
> these different options are confusing and cannot be answered intuitively
> (I prefer the trac-ticketsystem, it is also easier to review how it is
> fixed)

Big debates can be had over this.  I'm not going to enter this debate.

> 
> 6) website and doc
> I think you know...

Read the source? ;)

> 
> 7) ledger
> "Source Mage Ledger is a client/server based system that collects and
> processes
> stats about Source Mage GNU/Linux (users, spells, ...).
> Don't hesitate to cast smgl-ledger and upload your stats"
> 
> Sounds much like a privacy issue. I do not want anybody to know what
> software I use and whatever this tool does or might do.
> 

It's not even an official project, and it's hosted off-site at a 
university.  It's opt-in and for statistics.  Nobody has published any 
user data from official website hits to anybody, and I don't even think 
we keep the logs for longer than a month anyways.

> 
> 
> greetings

Thanks for the feedback.

Seth

> 
> a user
> 
> 
> 



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