[ACTION REQUIRED] Retiring packages for F-17

[tox]

From Bill Nottingham ( redhat )

http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/devel/2012-January/161134.html

you also may wanna read the mailing list to see whose picked up what etc

[Dan]

Hmmmm.

I can see that due to many of the packages I actually use being on that list, F16 may well be my last fedora.

[tox]

i think eventually Fedora will only have as many packages as RHEL does now. but i think perhaps a lot of people are just moving over to Mint. would be interesting to findout how many all up packages are in Fedora now

[Dan]

It's not so much about the quantity of packages, as it is the usefulness of them, and that is determined on a user-by-user case-by-case basis.

When they start dropping away my GIMP and graphics packages ... I start re-assessing my distro of choice. It's pretty much a matter of productivity here.

[Wayne]

Wll there be anything left? :doh:

[tox]

It's not so much about the quantity of packages, as it is the usefulness of them, and that is determined on a user-by-user case-by-case basis.

When they start dropping away my GIMP and graphics packages ... I start re-assessing my distro of choice. It's pretty much a matter of productivity here.

i dont think they'll ever Drop the Gimp. someone will always maintain it till something better comes out.

---------- Post added at 03:06 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:58 PM ----------

Wll there be anything left? :doh:

Fedora always goes through this with each release but i think lately ( i think in Kevin Koflers post ) says why many are orphaning packages.

[Dan]

i dont think they'll ever Drop the Gimp. someone will always maintain it till something better comes out.

Never underestimate the ability of smart people to make completely silly mistakes. These are the same folks who decided to drop the GIMP from the liveCD.

Orphan GREYCstoration
Orphan gimpfx-foundry
Orphan gkrellm-volume
Orphan gnome-paint

[tox]

Never underestimate the ability of smart people to make completely silly mistakes. These are the same folks who decided to drop the GIMP from the liveCD.

hopefully someone picks those up.

[Wayne]

Dropping gWaei from F16 was enough to stop me from installing it.

[gadgetwiz]

When they start dropping away my GIMP and graphics packages ... I start re-assessing my distro of choice.
Double Ditto!!

Where was GIMP on the list?

gimpfx-foundry should never have been created and has caused more problems than it has provided useful scripts. The problem is that they renamed the scripts, as entitled by the original script(s) author(s). When someone updated (or simply installed) a script later, using the author's original script name, a conflict occurred, and most of the time, a very non-obvious conflict for the average GIMP user. fx-foundy has been a nightmare for the GIMP community, due to them renaming the scripts.

[Finalzone]

Want to keep those packages in repository? Time to train to become a maintainer.


Never underestimate the ability of smart people to make completely silly mistakes. These are the same folks who decided to drop the GIMP from the liveCD.

have you tried Fedora Design Spin LiveCD? It does include Gimp. For the Desktop Live Media, the xz compression massively reduced the size of packages which should allow Gimp to be included. You can request that reintegration.

[stevea]

Who do we have to 'retire' to get gnome3 added to the list ? :C

That list doesn't look too bad, and people should understand that maintaining the packages is a long-term commitment.

Fedora will still have vastly more packages than RHEL. People don't realize how limited RHEL without EPEL.

[Dan]

Want to keep those packages in repository? Time to train to become a maintainer. If someone has those sorts of skills, that's a heckuva good suggestion.



have you tried Fedora Design Spin LiveCD? It does include Gimp. For the Desktop Live Media, the xz compression massively reduced the size of packages which should allow Gimp to be included. You can request that reintegration. Yes, I have. In fact, the install on my laptop was done with it.

[vein]

Losing perl-graphviz would not be wise, as it still sees plenty of use in the bioinformatics community...

[leigh123linux]

avant-window has been orphaned again

http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/devel/2012-January/161219.html

[tox]

sounds a bit like compiz lately, seems to be slow if not dead upstream

[jpollard]

I wonder what happened to the previous maintainers... Did they abandon Fedora for other distributions? And if so, why?

[tox]

I wonder what happened to the previous maintainers... Did they abandon Fedora for other distributions? And if so, why?

did you read the entire posts on the subject? im sure you will find your answers there

[jpollard]

did you read the entire posts on the subject? im sure you will find your answers there

Yup.

Lots of "They might have...", "Too much bureaucracy...", "Not enough.."

Even one referring to a possible "unusable desktop" problem.


Nobody seems to be asking/surveying the former maintainers.

[tox]

Yup.

Lots of "They might have...", "Too much bureaucracy...", "Not enough.."

Even one referring to a possible "unusable desktop" problem.


Nobody seems to be asking/surveying the former maintainers.

i think you got the answer(s) there. IMO Fedora will lose more Package(s) maintainers. its easy for leigh or someone with his skill to maintain or package a package. Fedora Project need a " Real " policy to make is less cumbersome for maintainers to maintain a or there package. Fedora's Packaging Guidelines change that often you wonder why there losing so many maintainers.

---------- Post added at 12:16 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:41 AM ----------

to be orphaned packages https://fedorahosted.org/fedora-infrastructure/attachment/ticket/3046/to-be-orphaned.txt

---------- Post added at 12:38 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:16 PM ----------

i would strongly consider MINT Dan if you need those gimp packages badly

[Finalzone]

[...]

i would strongly consider MINT Dan if you need those gimp packages badly

That will be counter-productive should Mint (or distro of your choice) packagers themselves decide to abandon their own. It is the maintainers duty to make sure to keep their own active as possible.
As one of Fedora packagers, I had one of inactive co-maintainers who did not respond to my email for week so I chose to take his over. For that reasons, even real policies will not help without individuals taking responsibility. Helps aver available when needed.

[tox]

i think Dan will have more luck getting those packages in Mint. what i'd do is register on the Mint forums and ask the question if anyone packages those gimp packages that Dan needs to do his work. only way i would abandon Fedora for another distro is if someone stopped packaging Audacious and Thunderbird .

[Dan]

A simpler solution is to fetch the bits I need from the GIMP script collection. Although MINT is indeed an option. The War Department runs it and loves it.

That being said, Finalzone has a very valid point, and certainly a more constructive and positive-outcome focused solution.

[dyfet]

Slim is something I like to use, especially if I need a testing vm or a very lightweight system and I clearly don't want a massive login manager with large dependencies like gdm or kdm, or to run a desktop env; just a simple login manager, and a window manager perhaps like openbox (or maybe icewm), and an xterm. Slim can also be nice matched up with xfce. I feel it is generally becoming harder to do such minimalistic and traditional environments in Fedora, and maybe I am wrong on this, but if so I think this trend is actually unfortunate.

Of course I am sure everyone has a favorite orphaned package from that list. I may have to see about possibly adopting slim though.

[tox]

Slim is something I like to use, especially if I need a testing vm or a very lightweight system and I clearly don't want a massive login manager with large dependencies like gdm or kdm, or to run a desktop env; just a simple login manager, and a window manager perhaps like openbox (or maybe icewm), and an xterm. Slim can also be nice matched up with xfce. I feel it is generally becoming harder to do such minimalistic and traditional environments in Fedora, and maybe I am wrong on this, but if so I think this trend is actually unfortunate.

Of course I am sure everyone has a favorite orphaned package from that list. I may have to see about possibly adopting slim though.

you can use any Login Manager you want, your not forced to use GDM or KDM. however if you wanna use SLIM start learning how to package stuff in Fedora and maintain it. to late to get it into F17 but maybe F18. just file a ticket to FESCO about it ( i think thats the right method )

[Palooka]

I'm concerned about vte being in the list. lxterminal requires it, so presumably LXDE will no longer be a proper option (at least, not with lxterminal, which is LXDE's default).

[PaulAlesius]

Any simplification so people can focus on more important things, is good. One can always download latest sources of packages directly.

[AdamW]

vte was picked up, it's not in the final list of retired packages.

[Palooka]

vte was picked up, it's not in the final list of retired packages.

Ah right. Thanks. Actually, although I don't use gnome-terminal, I believe that it too depends on vte.

I did follow the list thread mentioned in tox's first post in this thread, but gave up after a while as it seemed to turn into an interminable exchange about procedures and red tape.

Any idea where I can see the final list to which you refer?

Thanks.

[stevea]

Ah right. Thanks. Actually, although I don't use gnome-terminal, I believe that it too depends on vte.

No gnome-terminal depends on vte3, not vte.

[Palooka]

No gnome-terminal depends on vte3, not vte.

Oh. I stand corrected . Thanks.

[AdamW]

palooka: it has the thread title 'ACTION NO LONGER REQUIRED' or something along those lines.

[mschwendt]

Fedora always goes through this with each release but i think lately ( i think in Kevin Koflers post ) says why many are orphaning packages.
Some people (including past package maintainers) say that some packages are dropped because the user community does not show enough interest in the packages. I've talked to some maintainers, who've had the impression that nobody used the packages anymore, especially not with Fedora Alpha/Beta test releases. Which lead to the maintainer not getting any help with testing and not finding the time to do everything themselves, because all of a sudden they would need to spend much more time than expected on preparing updates. With some packages it takes several months before Fedora users install the previous stable release of the Fedora distribution and start complaining about bugs they find. For example, when Fedora 17 will be available, some users will take a first look at upgrading to Fedora 16. Some even want to skip 16 without any plan on how to proceed if 15 reaches EOL. It's some sort of cherry-picking that isn't helpful, because in case of problems a user ought to take a look at the latest distribution release as soon as possible (the earlier the better).

In parts I agree with those opinions, but I don't know how to fix the issue.

[jpollard]

welll...

Since developers don't listen to users, why should users listen to the developers?

[tox]

Some people (including past package maintainers) say that some packages are dropped because the user community does not show enough interest in the packages. I've talked to some maintainers, who've had the impression that nobody used the packages anymore, especially not with Fedora Alpha/Beta test releases. Which lead to the maintainer not getting any help with testing and not finding the time to do everything themselves, because all of a sudden they would need to spend much more time than expected on preparing updates. With some packages it takes several months before Fedora users install the previous stable release of the Fedora distribution and start complaining about bugs they find. For example, when Fedora 17 will be available, some users will take a first look at upgrading to Fedora 16. Some even want to skip 16 without any plan on how to proceed if 15 reaches EOL. It's some sort of cherry-picking that isn't helpful, because in case of problems a user ought to take a look at the latest distribution release as soon as possible (the earlier the better).

In parts I agree with those opinions, but I don't know how to fix the issue. i think its more to the fact that " Packaging Guidelines " becomes to political an confusing to maintainers/co-maintainers so they orphan the package, Fedora is a Mess IMO when it comes to Package Guidelines. iv'e lost count on how many times its changed. iv'e seen the Guidelines changed more often than i have of Nappies

welll...

Since developers don't listen to users, why should users listen to the developers?
i agree with that.

[DBelton]

welll...

Since developers don't listen to users, why should users listen to the developers?

While I do agree that some of the developers have become deaf to user input, Not all of them have.

I have had very good results in communicating with some of the developers.

Now Gnome.. Well, those people don't even reach developer status in my mind. They are more like kids writing their first script for a etch-a-sketch.

[mschwendt]

i think its more to the fact that " Packaging Guidelines " becomes to political an confusing to maintainers/co-maintainers so they orphan the package,
Examples, please. What is too "political" or "confusing" to become a big issue after the package has been added to the collection already?

The package review process reveals that many submitted packages are mispackaged (not because they don't meet the guidelines, but because files are stored in wrong subpackages, build requirements are missing, debuginfo packages are empty, software setup is wrong, inter-package dependencies are wrong, just to name a few issues).

Fedora is a Mess IMO when it comes to Package Guidelines.
A mess? First time I hear that. Where is it a mess? And why?

iv'e lost count on how many times its changed. iv'e seen the Guidelines changed more often than i have of Nappies
It isn't a bad thing that the guidelines are still being worked on and that they are extended with new stuff from time to time. It's not as if package maintainers needed to follow a moving target in order to keep their package spec files working. Occasionally, they would learn where they could simplify their packages (and e.g. delete obsolete items).

A significant hurdle is when packagers receive a first series of crash reports sent via ABRT. Or when they want to upgrade a software release and that breaks dependencies and possibly even the API and results in much more work than expected. It's too easy for package maintainers to drop the ball, especially if interest in the packaged software doesn't seem to exist.

[Finalzone]

welll...

Since developers don't listen to users, why should users listen to the developers?

Does it apply to users who are actually developers themselves?

[Dan]

Okey dokey, folks. Those are perfectly valid questions, (in the last two posts) and as such, they need and deserve dispassionate and helpful answers ... or the problems they reveal will stand a far lower chance of being successfully resolved.

In short, no hair-pulls, please. Just accurate examples and conversation directed toward constructive results.

Thanks.