Re: GTK and OSX: a call to sanity

[Emmanuele Bassi <ebassi gmail com>]

On 2011-09-06 at 13:32, John Ralls wrote:

> > if there are patches for gtk-quartz, why are these inside at least three
> > branches instead of being committed to corresponding main line one? why
> > are these branch continuously being merged instead of being rebased, if
> > they are personal branches?
> > 
> > why are the tools to make bundles and modulesets hosted on github
> > instead of being on gnome.org?
> > 
> > why is gtk-osx a separate project, with mailing lists hosted on
> > sourceforge, instead of being on gnome.org? every time that a project
> > maintainer decides to use sourceforge, the Universe kills a puppy.
> > 
> > can we please, *please*, for the love of all that's nice and pure in this
> > Universe, stop killing puppies?

> The tools and modulesets are on GitHub because that's where Richard
> Hult put them when he started 5 or 6 years ago and I haven't had time
> to change that since getting commit privs on git.gnome.org last year.
> What bothers you about it?

that something that should be in a central location is not. in order to
build gtk on OSX I have to hunt down various bits and blobs, and the
barrier to contribution from me, a gtk developer, is higher.

> Gtk-OSX is a separate project hosted on Sourceforge because Richard
> was using the facilities of his company, Imendio, which he had just
> dissolved. Those resources weren't available to me. The barriers to
> setting up a full project on Gnome including mailing lists, a
> bugtracker, web fora, source repositories, web pages, and ftp
> downloads seem daunting and time consuming -- while I (or anyone else)
> can have it set up on Sourceforge in a few hours with a single
> request. Sourceforge is working well hosting all of that stuff and no
> puppies are being killed -- nor is anything else bad happening.

sourceforge is working so well that it bounces and rejects my emails to
the mailing lists for days. their bug tracking system is the scourge of
the earth, and the mailing list archives are a joke.

but those are moot points: the gtk resources *are* on gnome.org. why you
need a separate mailing list and forum and bug tracker is beyond me:

  • once you have a Git account you can create repositories on
  git.gnome.org in 30 seconds;

  • the gtk bug tracking system in bugzilla.gnome.org; the Quartz
  backend specific bugs have a component under the gtk+ product;

  • the separate tools for OS X integration can get a separate product
  just by opening a bug on bugzilla.gnome.org;

  • the gtk website is hosted in git.gnome.org; the OS X integration
  should be part of that website;

  • downloads are available from download.gnome.org;

  • gtk has three mailing lists already: gtk-list, gtk-app-devel-list
  and gtk-devel-list; application and toolkit development on OS X is
  on topic on those three lists.

there is no time consumption — just the willingness to cooperate in an
open source project according to the rules of said open source project.

> I'm sorry that you're irritated by the noise of the daily merges
> between master and quartz-integration,

I'm moderately irritated by the fact that the branch's history is
immensely fucked up — but that's just because I'm OCD on the history in
a revision control system.

that is, however, *not* my issue.

the issue is that those branches should *not* exist, unless they are
personal development branches. if you plan on letting other users target
them then you should get those commits merged into the main line and
keep the patches in bugzilla, where the review for gtk fixes and
enhancements happens.

otherwise you're just forking gtk, and using the resources of the gtk
project to give an aura of officiality to what is essentially your own
personal project.

ciao,
 Emmanuele.

-- 
W: http://www.emmanuelebassi.name
B: http://blogs.gnome.org/ebassi