Re: Better collaboration with distributions

[Vincent Untz <vuntz gnome org>]

Hi,

You contacted Novell, but I guess you also expected answers from
openSUSE, not just SLE... Novell != openSUSE ;-) So here are some
answers for openSUSE:

Le mardi 18 janvier 2011, à 09:40 +0800, Frederic Muller a écrit :
> The 5 questions that were asked are the followings:
> 1. What version(s) of GNOME do you maintain in a stable fashion?

We maintain the following versions:
 openSUSE 11.2: GNOME 2.28.2
 openSUSE 11.3: GNOME 2.30.0 (+ 2.30.x for some modules)

openSUSE 11.4 will be out in March (one month before 3.0, unfortunate
timing), and we'll have 2.32.x there.

Until the end of 2010, we also maintained GNOME 2.24.x for openSUSE
11.1.

openSUSE 11.2 is maintained until mid-May 2011.
openSUSE 11.3 is maintained until mid-January 2011.

FWIW, we also provide in a we-do-our-best-way-but-it's-not-supported way
major updates to GNOME. For example, users can have GNOME 2.32 on
openSUSE 11.3, and GNOME 2.30 on openSUSE 11.2.

> 2. How much work does this represent?

It's really hard to answer, but in general, we rely a lot on upstream
fixes. And it turns out that major bugs we get reported are generally
fixed later on in the stable branch of GNOME, unless it requires a
code reorganization.

So it's still some work since there are many more packages than
packagers, but as long as upstream keeps caring for the stable branch,
it's fine :-)

> 3. Do you feel there is duplication of work between what you do and what
> other distribution do?

Generally: not in bug fixing. But in triaging downstream bugs, finding a
matching bug upstream, and finding fixes upstream, yes.

> 4. How do you see a potential collaboration between all of "us"
> (upstream and downstream projects)?

Making it easier to find patches in downstream packages, as well as why
those patches are needed who be good: as an upstream maintainer, I want
to know what downstream changes; as a downstream packager, I always
check what others are shipping, to see if it fixes bugs we have.

Also, Federico had the idea a few years ago that after a GNOME release
is "not maintained anymore" (ie, GNOME 2.30 is kind of dead once GNOME
2.32 is out), it could make sense to have downstreams commit more things
directly in the branch (ie, downstreams could change gnome-2-30 stuff
more easily). That'd enable better sharing for fixes.

> 5. We are definitely aware that today each of us use a different bug
> tracking system. Do you see any possible technical solution that could
> address this specific issue?

https://wiki.mozilla.org/Bugzilla:Roadmap
See "Inter-Bugzilla Integration Capabilities". That would help, I'm
sure, but that's far away in the future.

Vincent

-- 
Les gens heureux ne sont pas pressés.