Date: Sun, 30 Dec 2001 16:03:54 -0800 From: John Merryweather Cooper <john_m_cooper@yahoo.com> To: sobomax@FreeBSD.org Cc: gnome@FreeBSD.org, ports@FreeBSD.org, ade@FreeBSD.org, proclus@iname.com Subject: Re: GNOME on BSD: the past and the future Message-ID: <20011230160354.C33226@johncoop.MSHOME> In-Reply-To: <1009754271.254.14.camel@notebook>; from sobomax@mail.ru on Sun, Dec 30, 2001 at 15:18:01 -0800 References: <1009754271.254.14.camel@notebook>
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On 2001.12.30 15:18 Maxim Sobolev wrote: > [CC'ed to ports@FreeBSD.org for better reach] > > Dear friends, > > As usual, the very end of the year is a good time to summarize things > that happened during the past year as well as set targets for the next > year. > > The past year was undoubtedly the very successful time for the GNOME > development in general of for FreeBSD porting effort. Several "killer > apps" and core components either reached their 1.0 release, or are > close > to that point, and what's more important for us is that most of those > apps are now working on FreeBSD quite stably. Of course this would be > absolutely impossible without the great help from the FreeBSD GNOME > community and I would like to use this opportunity to say "thank you" > to > all people who contributed patches, bug reports, suggestions and moral > support. It was really enjoyable to work with you and I look forward > to > continuing our fruitful co-operation in the year 2002. > > Speaking about the future, there are several ideas that I would like > to > share with you and get your feedback on. > > First of all, it is quite clear that we need to move away from the > existing "one person" development model, because the size of the GNOME > ports sub-collection is growing fast, and things are likely to become > even worse when the GNOME2 platform will start shaping out in the > second > half of the 2002. My vision is that we need a team of at least 2-3 > dedicated developers with the write access to FreeBSD ports repository > by the mid-2002 and 5-6 at the end of the year. I have a few potential > candidates on the list and planning to start discussing with each of > them shortly. > > Another thing that I think would be necessary is the dedicated GNOME > packages building machine to test and debug the changes on, because > current bento turn-around times are sub-optimal. If anybody is > interested and has a machine with good connectivity and some spare CPU > cycles - please let me know. > I build all these applications (the GNOME components and most of the ports) on a regular basis (every time they change) anyway. I have a 700 mHz Athlon and 512kbps upstream (if someone wants to play on my system, the problem is that I have dynamic IP through my provider). I would be happy to run a cron-driven job, produces logs, and e-mail them out through some automated means. > There are also a number of tasks that are less critical and more > long-term, but they are also have to be eventually addressed: > > 1. Integration of the FreeBSD-specific changes into the main GNOME > repository. As the time goes, this becomes more and more important, > because with each new release the number of local changes and hacks > increases eating up a valuable time due to necessary to merge old > changes into the new code. It would be much easier if we have had a > person with the direct write access into the GNOME cvs repo (another > long-term goal), but there isn't such person yet, so we need to cope > with the problem somehow. It would be great is somebody could pick up > this task, or at least part of it (say only patches for core > components > upon which gnomecore depends - see attached list), identify patches > that > could be integrated and submit them into the GNOME bug tracking > system. > > 2. Creation of the website for the "GNOME on the FreeBSD" FreeBSD > subproject. For example we have such website for Java subproject > (http://www.FreeBSD.org/java/). I have some ideas about possible > content > of those pages, so don't hesitate to contact me if you are interested > in > doing that. On a related note, we need some form of FAQ with answers > to > a common FreeBSD-specific questions, because I see people keep asking > the same ones again and again just wasting their and ours time. I have > archives of gnome@FreeBSD.org alias since its beginning as well as my > answers to GNOME-related question sent to ports@FreeBSD.org before the > alias was created, so what is really necessary here is to do > compilation. Again, if somebody feels adventurous enough to pick this > up > - please let me know. > I would be happy to throw together/maintain a website for FreeBSD-GNOME. Yet another excuse to play with SCREEM. :) An integral part of this would be the FAQ. > 3. Better co-operation with the same porting efforts on others BSD > derivatives, most notably NetBSD and GNU/Darwin. Obviously, most of > the > FreeBSD-specific changes in our tree aren't really FreeBSD-specific, > but > instead BSD-specific, so that all parties could benefit from that by > avoiding duplicate work. From all above, it's most non-obvious task, I > still do not have a clear vision of how this could be attacked. > > 4. Better dialogue with GNOME developers. Since Ade's (who at that > time > was the member of GNOME Foundation) resignation there was almost no > relations between FreeBSD and main GNOME developers. Again, I do not > have a clear vision of how to address this problem, perhaps Ade has > some > better ideas. Ade? > > Ok folks, that's basically all I have to say on the topic - feel free > to > follow-up with your comments, suggestions and feedback. Please note, > however, that I'll be mostly off-line during the next 2 days, so be > more > patient - I'll answer eventually. > > And last, but not least, I would like to wish to all users and > developers a happy, prosperous and successful New Year!!! > > -Maxim > -- _ | |V| / ' || MacroHard -- \ \_| | | \_, || the perfection of form over | ----------------------------------|| substance, marketing over | Web: http://www.borgsdemons.com || performance, and greed over | AIM: johnmcooper || design . . . | =====================================================================/ Public Key: http://www.borgsdemons.com/Personal/pgpkey.asc | =====================================================================\ To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-ports" in the body of the message
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