Buildability of tarballs and cvs

["Elijah Newren" <newren gmail com>]

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??").  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...).

Luis also wanted me to say:
 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.

 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.


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) simple build warnings
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