Re: Draft of dogfoodability issues to mention on d-d-l

["Luis Villa" <luis villa gmail com>]

On 6/15/06, Elijah Newren <newren gmail com> wrote:
> Hi everyone,
>
> This is just a quick email to ask for help in improving the
> dogfoodability of our tarballs and CVS.  See the lists below my
> verbose explanation if you want to jump to the details.  :)
>
> Currently, buildability from either tarballs or CVS is pretty poor; I
> wouldn't consider either in a dogfoodable state.  Most of it is just
> small things that are easily fixed, but it really adds up.  We have
> felt forced to include a growing number of build-fix patches with each
> 2.15.x release so far, which seems rather suboptimal ("why can't we
> just fix the modules??").

I'd note that I think the r-t's position should be to refuse to
release such tarballs, and consider refusing to release the whole
release until they are all fixed. The email should stress that
time-based releases only work if the code is dogfoodable all the time.

>  There have also been multiple cases where
> we have had to revert modules to older versions.  It's worth noting
> that not all is bad -- a quick search shows that there are over two
> dozen build bugs that have been fixed in the last week and that's only
> counting the ones that I filed.  So people are definitely working hard
> on this.  We'd just like to ask for some extra help where possible to
> clean up the remainder of the issues (in fact, a bunch of them already
> have patches...).

I'd suggest requesting a volunteer to scream at d-d-l every time
tinderbox breaks. IMHO, publicly shaming those who break the build is
the only way you're going to achieve regular buildability- bugzilla is
insufficient.

Otherwise, the email looks fine.

Luis

> Problems which don't have patches:
> -----------------------------------
> evolution-data-server  324546  e-d-s doesn't work with mozilla 1.8 or
>                                firefox 1.5; epiphany & yelp don't work
> with older
>                                mozilla.  We don't want to depend on both
> gnome-system-tools     N/A     requires system-tools-backends which require
>                                perl bindings to DBus; Carlos said he'd make it
>                                optional here:
>              http://mail.gnome.org/archives/release-team/2006-June/msg00007.html
> evolution-data-server  344790  won't find mozilla libraries, causes build
>                                breakage in other apps like bug-buddy
>
>
> Problems with patches:
> -----------------------------------
> gtkmm                  344788  (and 344787, 344786, 344771) - all simple issues
> orbitcpp               344714  "const" issues
> gnopernicus            344695  can't find gdkx.h
> gnome-vfs              344349  checks for selinux aren't robust
> gnome-mag              344295  checked-in file automatically generated/modified
> gnome-applets          344995  last tarball (2.14.2) doesn't build with 2.15.x
> pygtk                  344845  (probably fixed now by pygtk-2.15.2)
> deskbar-applet         345011  type -> crash (lone non-build issue in this list)
>
>
> Problems in non-release-set modules:
> -----------------------------------
> rhythmbox              343718  partially fixed, but fix has new problems
> rhythmbox              345036  last released tarball won't build under 2.15.x
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