[Sugar-devel] Official homepages for activities are at laptop.org?

[Gary C Martin]

Hi Jonas,

On 30 May 2009, at 19:05, Jonas Smedegaard wrote:

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> On Sat, May 30, 2009 at 05:03:34PM +0100, Gary C Martin wrote:
>> Hi Jonas,
>>
>> On 30 May 2009, at 09:44, Jonas Smedegaard wrote:
>>> While updating packages for Debian, I failed to find proper  
>>> homepages
>>> for activities at wiki.sugarlabs.org - and core introduction at
>>> http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Sugar_Application_Stack points to some
>>> of the Sucrose activities at wiki.laptop.org.
>>>
>>> Is that correct?  Are official activity homepages at  
>>> wiki.laptop.org?
>>
>> Are you looking for user oriented pages, or developer pages?
>
> This is what I am looking for (taken from Debian Policy §5.6.23 about
> the "Homepage" stanza):
>
>> The URL of the web site for this package, preferably (when  
>> applicable)
>> the site from which the original source can be obtained and any
>> additional upstream documentation or information may be found.
>
> I am packaging software that was published by Sugarlabs.  So for the
> context of the package that I build for Debian, Sugarlabs is  
> "upstream".
>
> I am looking for a single URL being the "home" (i.e. starting point  
> for
> web browsing) of what Sugarlabs is providing, for each activity or
> Glucose part.

Just to wave another URL option in the air, each project on  
git.sugarlabs.org can/does link to it's other resources, so for  
example http://git.sugarlabs.org/projects/labyrinth links both to it's  
current web site and bug tracker component page.

>> The activities.sugarlabs.org Mozilla addons based site is intended to
>> be the user facing site, with wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/
>> <activity_name> being used for more technical notes activity if  
>> needed.
>
> Well, I guess I mean eveloper pages, then.
>
> activities.s.o seems a dead end for anyone but _your_ users, as those
> pages seemingly link only to .xo files and homepages of _your_  
> upstreams
> (Chat homepage is at OLPC, EToys homepage is at squeakland).
>
> Some Debian users arguably are your users too, but administrators of
> Debian systems are also Debian "users" and they want everything  
> packaged
> and officially endorsed (a.k.a. "aged for some years" ;-) ) by Debian.
>
>> Activities that were OLPC deployed, generally have their pages still
>> on wiki.laptop.org, though as new (perhaps incompatible with 0.82)
>> releases are made this is slowly migrating over to SO.
>
> Ok.
>
> So links from http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Sugar_Application_Stack
> should be updated?

Well spotted, hadn't seen this page before, I'm tempted to just remove  
the individual Activity links that are here as it's not a full list  
and will only get out of date again :-)

> Are links from http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities then the right
> ones?

Yes they show all current wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/ 
<activity_name> pages, but authors only create such a page if they  
have need to provide advanced/developer/technical/community type  
information.

> Or are there no "right", but only "luck"?

We (ActivityTeam) are still trying to cat herd the willing and able  
Activity authors over to SL infrastructure, as a FLOSS, 100% volunteer  
community, this often feels like slow-motion juggling with water  
balloons, in zero-gravity, but many 'balloons' are now at least  
floating in a similar direction :-) *** It will take time.

*** The ActivityTeam can short circuit some of this by adopting  
Activities, but that is not a scalable solution, and prevents the team  
from getting on with other tasks.

Regards,
--Gary

>> FWIW: Here are some other structures/locations that Activity
>> developers are asked to update if they want to help try and make
>> packagers lives easier:
>>
>> 	http://download.sugarlabs.org/sources/honey/
>
> That's pages for download origin.  Makes sense to include too (in  
> Debian
> packages such URLs are included in the file "copyright" and inside
> scripts for automated download and/or tracking newer upstream  
> releases).
>
> I wouldn't use such pages as Homepages, however, as they do not  
> contain
> any introduction, and barely link to anywhere: It's a dead end for
> anythong but downloading tarballs.
>
>
>> 	http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Development_Team/Source_Code
>
> Hmm.  According to that page, 0.82 is latest stable Sucrose, and most
> "Latest release" entries are too old as well.  I suggest dropping that
> column and instead in first column link to the directory containing
> source tarballs.  Perhaps also rename column titles to this:
>
>   Source | Description | Development repository
>
>
>
>> 	http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Sugar_on_a_Stick/Roadmap
>
> I suspect this is only relevant as inspiration for alternative
> distributions.
>
> Or is SoaS the recommended upstream source for other distributions?!?
>
>
>> Would be great if this (at some point) could be simplified to the
>> point where having a git repository at git.sugarlabs.org was enough
>> for all to work from. I think I've heard vague whispers that there
>> might be some process used (or being worked on) by the Soas distro  
>> for
>> pulling/building bundles from git**?
>
> Cool for SoaS, but again, how is this relevant for other distros?
>
> It might make sense for Sugarlabs to  
> generate .tar.bz2, .deb, .rpm, .xo
> and various other format files automatically from git, but that will  
> be
> in _addition_ to the packages maintained by each (larger)  
> distribution,
> not replacing it.
>
>
>> ** I guess we would need some clear git guidelines for Activity
>> authors to make sure their Activity mainline branch was always at the
>> latest stable release (with new version work happening in branch/s).
>
> Would be great, but does not in itself solve the problem of  
> information
> scattered all over, and - back to my main point - the lack of a
> "homepage" to refer to from distributions.
>
> Suggestion: Setup an automated script that trawls
> http://download.sugarlabs.org/sources/**/${pkg}/*.tar.bz2 and  
> generates
> http://packages.sugarlabs.org/${pkg} for each package, and either an
> index or a search page on the front page.
>
> Each page would contain link to newest tarball, directory with all
> tarballs, homepage at activities.sugarlabs.org, bugtracker page, git
> browser etc.
>
> In case of name clash between Glucose module and activity, show infor
> for them both, emphasizing the activity part.  In case of Fructose and
> Hony name clash, include both, emphasizing Fructose.
>
> The key point is that the information is automated, and only present
> references that match Sugarlabs standards.  If
> http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/Chat is missing then tough  
> luck:
> then Chat won't have a wiki page promoted.  It might still have a
> "Legacy wiki" page or "OLPC downstream wiki" page if such are  
> generally
> handled by the script, but noone gets to squeeze in temporary stuff  
> that
> then goes stale.
>
>
> This proposal does not replace your dream about a super polished git
> taking care of everything - they go hand in hand: When that Git
> structure works, it simply means that the little boring script just
> fully presents everything properly :-)
>
>
>
> Kind regards,
>
>  - Jonas
>
> - --
> * Jonas Smedegaard - idealist og Internet-arkitekt
> * Tlf.: +45 40843136  Website: http://dr.jones.dk/
>
>  [x] quote me freely  [ ] ask before reusing  [ ] keep private
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