[CentOS-devel] progress?

On Sun, 20 Feb 2011, Johnny Hughes wrote:

> On 02/20/2011 07:21 PM, Steve Meyers wrote:
>> On 2/20/11 12:03 PM, Fabian Arrotin wrote:
>>> I know i've already said that in that thread (but a lot of people have
>>> 'echoed' their own answers too, right ?:-)  ) but i've had personally
>>> the case where people were asking to 'help the project' and when they
>>> were pointed to either improving the website, translate the wiki,
>>> chasing after potential banding issues, etc, etc .. the only answer i've
>>> got*multiple*  times was "no, i'm not interested in doing that : i just
>>> want to rebuild packages" .. so each time it proved me that such people
>>> aren't interested in helping the project as a whole, but instead just
>>> want to focus on build issues. I'm really wondering (and still*my*
>>> opinion) if those people are interested in CentOS as a project, or just
>>> want to 'suck' some build scripts (which are just wrappers around
>>> mock/plague as stated so much times in that thread) to produce their own
>>> respins.
>>
>> Does rebuilding packages not count as helping the project?  If the
>> release speed is seen as the biggest problem with the project, why do
>> you assume ulterior motives for people who want to help out with the effort?
>>
>> For goodness sake, it's an open source project.  Who cares if the
>> occasional person wants to produce their own respin.
>
> External rebuilds of packages could never be used by this project, or
> any other project.

Johnny,

For heaven's sake. The fact that users can rebuild has many applications 
even if the RPMs will never be part of CentOS (for obvious reasons).

  * You create a community of people that can help troubleshoot problems
    and report problems upstream (less effort for the CentOS developers !)
    Farkas Levente single-handedly reported most RHEL6 rebuild problems to
    Red Hat.

  * This community of people has a higher standard than the current
    community. Which has been the reason for _not accepting_ more people in
    various positions (they first have to prove themselves, right ? Prove
    themselves doing what exactly ?)

  * Thanks to more people understanding what is involved, the automation
    part (tools, scripts, ...) can improve as well. You mention that SRPMs
    are not being changed, but the environment for each build may be
    adapted. Looks to me a good tool describing this for those packages is
    useful. (If only to share that information between our advanced users)

  * The more people involved, the more people you can choose from once
    crucial members of the team get married, have children, drop dead, or
    anything else in life that takes away free time put into the CentOS
    project. It's a clear win-win for the project.

You mentioned the Fedora project as the most open project you know. Why 
not learn from how they work ? Obviously packages build by a single 
Fedora user are not going into Fedora either, but at least nothing in the 
process is concealed to users, so users can advance and the project 
improves as well.

-- 
-- dag wieers, dag at wieers.com, http://dag.wieers.com/
-- dagit linux solutions, info at dagit.net, http://dagit.net/

[Any errors in spelling, tact or fact are transmission errors]