ESR "fedora-submit"

[Konstantin Ryabitsev]

On 12/24/06, Michael Tiemann <tiemann at redhat.com> wrote:
> Konstantin--how many packages do you maintain?  I think that rather than
> sniping at a would-be contributor, I'd like to see somebody who is
> maintaining at least 30, and perhaps 50 packages explain how *they* do
> it.  Maybe they have a better way.  Maybe it drives them almost as crazy
> Eric.  How *does* a maintainer of 36 packages would with the Fedora
> process?  How *should* one do it?  This is the question and the problem
> to be solved.

I maintain a very small number -- only 15. From my own experience, I
can tell you that work spent actually doing something with spec files
is negligeable compared to how much effort is spent tracking what is
going on with a project, doing test builds and verifying that they
work, running rpmlint, responding to bugzilla requests, opening
upstream bugzilla requests for bugs filed with a package, monitoring
cvs commits to see if someone was "messing" with your projects, etc.

You can't script that. If project "a" releases a "point update" to
"1.1.2" from "1.1.1," it's not enough to run "make new-sources". You
have to read the Changelog to see why they have issued this update
(security? rush it through. fixes for solaris builds? whatever, ignore
it). You then have to spend a few days just monitoring the list to see
if there is an "oh shit, that release breaks something" moment --
those tend to happen frequently. Only then, after a few days, you get
to actually run "make new-sources", run a test mock build, run rpmlint
against the packages, then copy sources, .cvsignore, foo.spec into
FC-5 and devel. CVS commit, make tag, make build.

Can it be scripted? I have no doubt. Will that actually be solving any
problems? I don't think so. The integral part of caring for fedora
packages is the human element -- making sure that you don't commit
something broken. Even with all that time-consuming care, things slip
up and break all the time. I don't see how removing all "palliative
care" from the process is going to result in anything but more broken
packages in the long-run.

Sure, I don't have "36 projects" -- I don't even have catchy 3 letters
to go by, but I assure you that I keep just as busy.

Regards,
-- 
Konstantin Ryabitsev
Montréal, Québec