[SAC] Motion: Provide SVN and Trac services to the UbuntuGIS project

Committees SAC mailing list
1

Motion:
-----------
I hereby motion that SAC/OSGeo provide SVN and Trac services to the UbuntuGIS project, with Howard Butler taking care of the setup of the new services.
-----------

I'll start with my +1.

Once approved by SAC the request should be referred to the board for
approval.

A ticket has already been created for this:
http://trac.osgeo.org/osgeo/ticket/369

More about UbuntuGIS:

The UbuntuGIS project aims to provide up to date Ubuntu packages for the latest and greatest releases of OSGeo software as soon as the software is released. It is complementary to the DebianGIS project, the goals of UbuntuGIS and its relationship to DebianGIS and the official Ubuntu releases are explained here:

   http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/ubuntu/2009-May/000016.html

There is already a list for the project in case anyone has questions or wants to join the effort:

   http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu

Daniel
--
Daniel Morissette
http://www.mapgears.com/

2

Daniel Morissette wrote:

Motion:
-----------
I hereby motion that SAC/OSGeo provide SVN and Trac services to the UbuntuGIS project, with Howard Butler taking care of the setup of the new services.

+1 Frank

--
---------------------------------------+--------------------------------------
I set the clouds in motion - turn up | Frank Warmerdam, warmerdam@pobox.com
light and sound - activate the windows | http://pobox.com/~warmerdam
and watch the world go round - Rush | Geospatial Programmer for Rent

3

On May 20, 2009, at 10:40 AM, Frank Warmerdam wrote:

Daniel Morissette wrote:

Motion:
-----------
I hereby motion that SAC/OSGeo provide SVN and Trac services to the UbuntuGIS project, with Howard Butler taking care of the setup of the new services.

+1 Frank

+1 Howard

4

+1

-shawn

On 20-May-09, at 11:05 AM, Daniel Morissette wrote:

Motion:
-----------
I hereby motion that SAC/OSGeo provide SVN and Trac services to the UbuntuGIS project, with Howard Butler taking care of the setup of the new services.
-----------

I'll start with my +1.

Once approved by SAC the request should be referred to the board for
approval.

A ticket has already been created for this:
http://trac.osgeo.org/osgeo/ticket/369

More about UbuntuGIS:

The UbuntuGIS project aims to provide up to date Ubuntu packages for the latest and greatest releases of OSGeo software as soon as the software is released. It is complementary to the DebianGIS project, the goals of UbuntuGIS and its relationship to DebianGIS and the official Ubuntu releases are explained here:

http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/ubuntu/2009-May/000016.html

There is already a list for the project in case anyone has questions or wants to join the effort:

http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu

Daniel
--
Daniel Morissette
http://www.mapgears.com/
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Sac mailing list
Sac@lists.osgeo.org
http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/sac

5

On Wed, May 20, 2009 at 11:05:06AM -0400, Daniel Morissette wrote:

Motion:
-----------
I hereby motion that SAC/OSGeo provide SVN and Trac services to the
UbuntuGIS project, with Howard Butler taking care of the setup of the
new services.
-----------

Maybe the way I'm thinking how this should be done is too much
traditionally - or I simply didn't get the clue ....:

0
  Martin.
--
Unix _IS_ user friendly - it's just selective about who its friends are !
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

6

Martin Spott wrote:

Maybe the way I'm thinking how this should be done is too much
traditionally - or I simply didn't get the clue ....:

Is the problem with the fact that OSGeo shouldn't be involved in this, or that you think there is a better way to achieve the goal of providing up to date packages for Linux distros? (up to date is the key in this sentence)

Please elaborate... I'm always interested to hear of better ways of doing things.

Daniel
--
Daniel Morissette
http://www.mapgears.com/

7

Hi Daniel,

On Wed, May 20, 2009 at 03:43:31PM -0400, Daniel Morissette wrote:

Martin Spott wrote:

Maybe the way I'm thinking how this should be done is too much
traditionally - or I simply didn't get the clue ....:

Is the problem with the fact that OSGeo shouldn't be involved in this,
or that you think there is a better way to achieve the goal of providing
up to date packages for Linux distros?

Well, as I understand, they're not even providing packages, like
DebianGis does, they're just about maintaining the 'debian' package
config directory.

Look, nowadays a lot of OpenSource projects ship the most up-to-date
'debian' package configuration together with their source code
(analogously to shipping project files for the MacOS- or Windows-
development environments). My personal idea of "doing things right"
would be to negotiate with the "real/true" debian folks as well as with
the respective OSGeo projects and have this very 'debian' package
config directory set up in a way that works for both and to ship it
with the source.

To my opinion the current procedure has a slight taste of "doing things
different for no obvious reason, just as an end in itself" - taking the
pride ("we're the only ones to provide up-to-date packages") but still
delivering just a half-hearted solution. I find this a bit misleading -
and therefore I personally would prefer not to do it this way.

Best regards,
  Martin.
--
Unix _IS_ user friendly - it's just selective about who its friends are !
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

8

Martin Spott wrote:

Well, as I understand, they're not even providing packages, like
DebianGis does, they're just about maintaining the 'debian' package
config directory.

Wrong. UbuntuGIS is *NOT* only about maintaining the debian package config, the project is mostly about maintaining a package archive on Launchpad with up to date binary packages for the last three releases of Ubuntu.

I'm no Debian/Ubuntu packaging expert, but my understanding is that to provide binary packages, one has to maintain different versions of the config files for each target distribution... hence the need for an SVN.

Look, nowadays a lot of OpenSource projects ship the most up-to-date
'debian' package configuration together with their source code
(analogously to shipping project files for the MacOS- or Windows-
development environments).

Really? I'll defer to those in the know about this one, but I for one know that MapServer and GDAL don't do that yet...

My personal idea of "doing things right"
would be to negotiate with the "real/true" debian folks as well as with
the respective OSGeo projects and have this very 'debian' package
config directory set up in a way that works for both and to ship it
with the source.

Unfortunately we don't live in a perfect world, so until this ideal is achieved even the "real" debian folks have to manage the config files in their own source repository for several practical reasons... at least that's my understanding of the way they work.

I guess I should also add that Alan who just accepted the lead of the UnbuntuGIS project has also been contributor to the "real" DebianGIS project for a little while, and everything he does for UbuntuGIS is eventually retrofitted into DebianGIS for a later release... nobody is trying to steal pride away from anyone, just doing our best in an imperfect world.

To my opinion the current procedure has a slight taste of "doing things
different for no obvious reason, just as an end in itself" - taking the
pride ("we're the only ones to provide up-to-date packages") but still
delivering just a half-hearted solution. I find this a bit misleading -
and therefore I personally would prefer not to do it this way.

Ouch! That shows lots of respect for the hard work of volunteers working for the same cause as you...

Daniel
--
Daniel Morissette
http://www.mapgears.com/

9

On Wed, May 20, 2009 at 07:16:10PM -0400, Daniel Morissette wrote:

Ouch! That shows lots of respect for the hard work of volunteers working
for the same cause as you...

Oh man, if I knew that just sharing an opinion would result in this
flavour of claims, I would certainly have kept it private - I'd better
do so the next time,

  Martin.
--
Unix _IS_ user friendly - it's just selective about who its friends are !
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

10

Note that whoever's writing private EMail on this topic, trying to make
me feel guilty for whatever they like: I'm simply going to ignore it.
If people can't live with the fact that someone's having a different
opinion: Their problem.

In the future I'll try to make their lifes easier,

  Martin.
--
Unix _IS_ user friendly - it's just selective about who its friends are !
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

11

Martin,

I would encourage you to continue sharing your thoughts. Although I don't agree with your feelings about the motivation behind this request, I do agree with your assessment of where the package configs should be stored.

If there are people willing to tackle it, I would much rather work with the UbuntuGIS folks to ensure that package lists for FDO and MapGuide were maintained in their respective SVN repositories (alongside the Windows installer source) than have yet another location for members of our communities to track down project-related information. This tighter integration would also mean that it would be easier for us to tie a package->install->test step into our CI builds to ensure that the package stays in sync with the source.

I guess an analogy could be drawn between UbuntuGIS and OSGeo4W (making much of the OSGeo stack available in one location) but I think that this falls apart because of the differences in installer packaging. OSGeo4W is a monolithic installer, great for getting to know OSGeo software without having to download from multiple locations. UbuntuGIS (correct me if I'm wrong) would be more granular, where users pick and choose the packages they want rather than saying something like "apt-get UbuntuGIS". There is no technical reason to have a repository unless there are projects that wouldn't welcome the UbuntuGIS packages in their source control.

I don't think this has anything to do ego or credit though, just a technical approach that may or may not be the best possible choice.

Jason

-----Original Message-----
From: Martin Spott
Sent: Thursday, May 21, 2009 1:29 PM
To: System Administration Committee Discussion/OSGeo
Subject: Re: [SAC] Motion: Provide SVN and Trac services to the UbuntuGIS project

Note that whoever's writing private EMail on this topic, trying to make
me feel guilty for whatever they like: I'm simply going to ignore it.
If people can't live with the fact that someone's having a different
opinion: Their problem.

In the future I'll try to make their lifes easier,

  Martin.

12

Jason Birch wrote:

Martin,

I would encourage you to continue sharing your thoughts. Although I don't
agree with your feelings about the motivation behind this request, I do
agree with your assessment of where the package configs should be stored.

Jason,

I will note that in the past I tried to keep Debian packaging stuff
with GDAL and a few other packages I maintain and the feedback I recall
from the DebianGIS folks was that it was counter productive. It was
seldom appropriate for use in Debian at the point I released a GDAL release
(since I was not a savvy Debian person) and when the DebianGIS folks
fixed things up it was not all that convenient for them to get the
changes back into GDAL upstream.

So I'm not really all that convinced that it does make sense to keep
Debian/Ubuntu config stuff in upstream repositories.

I guess an analogy could be drawn between UbuntuGIS and OSGeo4W (making much
of the OSGeo stack available in one location) but I think that this falls
apart because of the differences in installer packaging. OSGeo4W is a
monolithic installer, great for getting to know OSGeo software without
having to download from multiple locations. UbuntuGIS (correct me if I'm
wrong) would be more granular, where users pick and choose the packages they
want rather than saying something like "apt-get UbuntuGIS". There is no
technical reason to have a repository unless there are projects that
wouldn't welcome the UbuntuGIS packages in their source control.

I would note that OSGeo4W is relatively fine grained packaging - not
a monolithic installer. In this regard it is fairly similar to
UbuntuGIS or DebianGIS though there are also distinctions of course,
such as OSGeo4W is not designed to be built from source but rather
consists of packager contributed binaries.

Best regards,
--
---------------------------------------+--------------------------------------
I set the clouds in motion - turn up | Frank Warmerdam, warmerdam@pobox.com
light and sound - activate the windows | http://pobox.com/~warmerdam
and watch the world go round - Rush | Geospatial Programmer for Rent

13

It was seldom appropriate for use in Debian at the point I
released a GDAL release (since I was not a savvy Debian
person) and when the DebianGIS folks fixed things up it was
not all that convenient for them to get the changes back into
GDAL upstream.

Were they involved in the project (did they have commit rights to your repository) or were they relying on the project to take their changes and re-integrate them?

I would note that OSGeo4W is relatively fine grained packaging
- not a monolithic installer.

My understanding was that OSGeo4W was basically a replacement for "apt" but OSGeo-specific and on a Windows platform. Isn't the intention that someone download OSGeo4W (which then allows them to choose which features they wish to install)?

Jason

14

Jason Birch wrote:

It was seldom appropriate for use in Debian at the point I released a GDAL
release (since I was not a savvy Debian person) and when the DebianGIS
folks fixed things up it was not all that convenient for them to get the
changes back into GDAL upstream.

Were they involved in the project (did they have commit rights to your
repository) or were they relying on the project to take their changes and
re-integrate them?

Jason,

The DebianGIS package maintainers were not GDAL commiters, though currently
Frankie is very good about passing back suggested fixes to GDAL. He has
never (in my recollection) expressed an interest in maintaining debian
stuff inside GDAL itself.

Note that the Debian folks are often driven loosely by the Debian release
cycle, and may not be particularly interested in refining GDAL for Debian
packaging while a major GDAL release is in Beta.

I'm not saying it couldn't work. I'm saying that it didn't work and
that it may not be realistic to expect tight integration between packaging
communities like DebianGIS and all the packages they incorporate.

I would note that OSGeo4W is relatively fine grained packaging - not a
monolithic installer.

My understanding was that OSGeo4W was basically a replacement for "apt" but
OSGeo-specific and on a Windows platform. Isn't the intention that someone
download OSGeo4W (which then allows them to choose which features they wish
to install)?

Yes, all the above is true, but that does not make it any more monolithic
than apt. Note that when you download the OSGeo4W installer you do not
actually get all the packages at the same time. They are downloaded
when you request them, and the package list is updated on an ongoing
basis.

Contrast that with FWTools for instance, which I do consider monolithic.
Everything you could install is in the download, and there is no
splitting of effort amoung many packages.

Best regards,
--
---------------------------------------+--------------------------------------
I set the clouds in motion - turn up | Frank Warmerdam, warmerdam@pobox.com
light and sound - activate the windows | http://pobox.com/~warmerdam
and watch the world go round - Rush | Geospatial Programmer for Rent

15

Daniel Morissette wrote:

Motion:
-----------
I hereby motion that SAC/OSGeo provide SVN and Trac services to the UbuntuGIS project, with Howard Butler taking care of the setup of the new services.
-----------

I declare this motion passed with +1 from DanielM, FrankW, HowardB and ShawnB, and a 0 vote from MartinS.

I will update the ticket and Howard can proceed with the setup when he sees fit.

Daniel
--
Daniel Morissette
http://www.mapgears.com/