[Sugar-devel] Migration from bugs.sugarlabs.org to Github

Tony Anderson tony at olenepal.org
Sat Dec 16 01:57:36 EST 2017 

What I mean by version control in this context is that git can extract 
the source code matching the 0.110 release. This would enable bugs 
reported against 0.110 to be reproduced and corrections applicable to 
0.110 to be made and released immediately. The subject of this thread: 
Migration from bugs.sugarlabs.org to Github was responded to 
appropriately. What was missed is the 'Migration from bugs.sugarlabs,org 
to Sugar'. Somehow we have become fixated on the notion that once code 
is merged into GitHub, the job is over.

I certainly don't understand your statement that Sugar was released as 
0.112.  The release '16.04.4 <http://wiki.laptop.org/go/16.04.4>is an 
OLPC OS release The target platform isNL3 
<http://wiki.laptop.org/go/NL3>only.' and does not mention what version 
of Sugar is provided. The releases for SOAS, Debian (including Raspberry 
Pi), Ubuntu, and Fedora are all 0.110. So far 0.112 is only available to 
developers who are presumably changing it - so how can that be called a 
release? Incidentally, SOAS is 0.110 on Fedora 27 - is anyone looking at 
providing Fedora 27 for the XO?

Clearly one of the challenges in recruiting help is that any changes are 
not available even a year (13.2.8 is dated 12/12/2016) after they are 
made. What reward does a contributor get in seeing pull requests 
integrated in a GitHub repository? Most expect the changes to be 
available to the hundreds of thousands of users in the field. This is no 
problem for GSOC and GCI participants - they have other compensation.

Further, one of the reasons most of our contributors are part of GSOC 
and GCI is that we provide no comparable path for independent 
contributors. If someone inquires, they are told to find a bug and fix 
it. We don't provide anything like the GSOC or GCI task list as areas 
where we could use help. You complain that ASLO does not have 
maintainers - have we ever suggested to a potential contributor that 
this is an area where we need help. We don't seem to understand that 
potential contributors are not Sugar users, probably have never seen an 
XO and so have no way to understand a bug report. Just as with GSOC and 
GCI, new contributors will need mentors to assist them getting started 
and to keep them interested.

Naturally, we lack testers. We haven't provided a release to test in 
over a year. Further we motivate testers by a system that ensures 
corrections to problems they report will be made available 'tomorrow' 
(as in 'tomorrow, you are only a day away). If you want testers, make a 
release that can be installed in the field without special technical 
expertise. How about a OLPC OS build offered as a 'nightly'? A tester is 
a user who reports problems with the software he or she is using.

Tony



On Friday, 15 December, 2017 10:40 PM, James Cameron wrote:
> G'day,
>
> Sorry if you think it obvious, but some of what you say doesn't make
> sense to me.  I'll try to respond though.  I hope anyone else who
> understands your points better might comment.
>
> Purpose of git is to provide version control, and "git log" shows the
> exact history of changes of what is different in a new release of
> Sugar.
>
> GitHub is a visualisation of git, as well as a social media
> concentrator for workflows that involve git.
>
> For instance https://github.com/sugarlabs/sugar/commits/master shows
> the exact history of changes for the Sugar desktop shell.  Each change
> is exactly described.
>
> The same view on other repositories show exact changes for other
> components of Sugar, such as the toolkit, datastore, and activities.
>
> Therefore I disagree that with GitHub we cannot maintain version
> control; we have full control of version of the source code.  But I'm
> not sure this is what you intended to say.
>
> Now, the reason it is not possible to fix 0.110 is that we have
> already fixed it, and released as 0.112.We face great challenges in
> having anybody work on Sugar, except for contestants, so we must guide
> their work to the latest Sugar.  It makes no sense to fix 0.110, we
> should instead fix 0.112.  Sugar Labs does provide support for the
> current release 0.112.
>
> Neither git nor GitHub are directly involved in the construction of
> OLPC OS 13.2.8 or 13.2.9.  So your concerns about GitHub have nothing
> to do with OLPC OS.
>
> Nobody has taken steps to get help from the WebKit project to fix bugs
> on Fedora 18.  No such steps could be taken, because we would be
> laughed at and ignored.  The root cause is lack of resources, and only
> an increase in resources could fix it.
>
> On Fri, Dec 15, 2017 at 09:29:34PM +0200, Tony Anderson wrote:
>> Hi, James
>>
>>
>>
>> "Sorry, I don't understand what you are saying about GitHub.'
>>
>> I would have thought this was obvious. THe porupose of GitHub is to provide
>> version control so that it is possible to tell from the history of changes what is
>> different in a new release.
>>
>> As you said, it is not possible to fix 0.110 or 13.2.8 becasue of our inabliity to
>> relate changes to the version against which the change was made. I suspect Sugar may
>> be the only open source project which is unable to provide support for its current release.
>>
>> What steps has Sugar-devel taken to get help from the WebKit project to fix these bugs in Fedora 18?
>>
>> Tony
>>
>>
>>
>> On Friday, 15 December, 2017 08:27 AM, James Cameron wrote:
>>> Thanks for that.  I expected there would be no resources.
>>>
>>> When I release a 13.2.9, it will be based on Fedora 18.  Using a more
>>> recent version of Fedora requires resources that aren't available here
>>> either.
>>>
>>> No, 13.2.9 and Fedora 18 won't support the WebKit2 verson of the
>>> Browse activity, because WebKit2 on Fedora 18 is very buggy.
>>>
>>> Browse-157.4 has all the new features of Browse-201.3 except for
>>> WebKit2 support.
>>>
>>> Sorry, I don't understand what you are saying about GitHub.
>>>
>>> On Fri, Dec 15, 2017 at 06:59:10AM +0200, Tony Anderson wrote:
>>>> Unfortunately, resources are not available here to test 0.112 on an XO. In
>>>> the past we have moved to the most recent build released by OLPC. There is
>>>> no urgency since this year we will have to continue with 13.2.8.
>>>>
>>>> Do you propose to release a 13.2.9 based on Fedora 18 or some more recent
>>>> version? Will 13.2.9 support the WebKit2 version of the Browse.activity?
>>>>
>>>> It seems ironic that in moving to github, we can no longer maintain version
>>>> control. I am not sure that I understand the technical issue in using 13.2.8
>>>> to obtain source copies of Sugar 0.110 for github. This should enable github
>>>> to perform its essential role to make visible the history of subsequent
>>>> changes.
>>>>
>>>> Tony
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Friday, 15 December, 2017 05:24 AM, James Cameron wrote:
>>>>> I've checked, and there has been no testing of Sugar 0.112 on XOs
>>>>> since it was released on 9th October.
>>>>>
>>>>> Without any independent testing, I can't afford the risk of releasing
>>>>> a 13.2.9 with Sugar 0.112.
>>>>>
>>>>> http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/0.112#Fedora_18_on_OLPC_XO explains how
>>>>> to update to Sugar 0.112 on an XO.
>>>>>
>>>>> Then use My Settings, Software Update, to update the activities.
>>>>>
>>>>> On Fri, Dec 15, 2017 at 06:43:57AM +1100, James Cameron wrote:
>>>>>> No, I don't think our technique is capable of fixing bugs in 0.110.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> No, I don't think the XOs will be limited to 13.2.8, and 0.112 is
>>>>>> already available for XOs.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> We do seem to be limited as a community in how 0.112 is being tested
>>>>>> to ensure there are no new bugs.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Thu, Dec 14, 2017 at 03:52:22PM +0200, Tony Anderson wrote:
>>>>>>> Is our bug-fixing technique capable of fixing bugs present in 0.110? It
>>>>>>> appears
>>>>>>> the the XOs will be limited to 13.2.8 and 0.110 for the forseeable future.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Tony
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On Thursday, 14 September, 2017 10:39 AM, James Cameron wrote:
>>>>>>>> Thanks for the idea.  If someone is available to do it, great.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> A quick bulk insert of issues could be done using the GitHub API, or
>>>>>>>> it could be done by hand by someone who knows nothing about Sugar.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> But it feels like unrewarding and wasted work, and there is more
>>>>>>>> important work to do, such as fixing bugs or developing features.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> We have no plans to shut down the Trac instance bugs.sugarlabs.org and
>>>>>>>> lose access to all those ideas.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Also moving them to GitHub seems very unlikely to accelerate the rate
>>>>>>>> at which tickets are resolved.  Firstly, because the very people who
>>>>>>>> might resolve tickets are busy moving tickets.  Secondly, because
>>>>>>>> those of us who are resolving tickets are able to do so with either
>>>>>>>> bugs.sugarlabs.org or GitHub issues.  Where the issue is lodged has no
>>>>>>>> relevance to fixing it.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> We also lack regular testing and reporting of new issues; either in
>>>>>>>> bugs.sugarlabs.org or GitHub issues.  It has been nice to see GitHub
>>>>>>>> used more, but mostly that is because of account approval delays on
>>>>>>>> bugs.sugarlabs.org.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> There are some bugs.sugarlabs.org bugs that we may never fix,
>>>>>>>> because the person who wanted them isn't interested any longer.
>>>>>>>> Bringing those bugs into GitHub issues could be disruptive and
>>>>>>>> unnecessary.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> On Thu, Sep 14, 2017 at 08:10:00AM +0000, Utkarsh Tiwari wrote:
>>>>>>>>> Hi everyone,
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> While going through https://bugs.sugarlabs.org today, I came across
>>>>>>>>> a lot of tickets that were raised quite a long time back ( > 2
>>>>>>>>> years). I was wondering if we could do a GCI task of raising those
>>>>>>>>> tickets into their respective Github respositories which can
>>>>>>>>> accelerate the  rate at which our tickets get resolved.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> This way newcomers while going through the SugarLabs repositories
>>>>>>>>> will be able to easily spot the issues regarding the specific repo
>>>>>>>>> they are watching. As not everyone is aware of our bugzilla, this
>>>>>>>>> could be a nice alternative to catching contributor's attention to
>>>>>>>>> raised tickets. What do you all think?
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Regards,
>>>>>>>>> Utkarsh Tiwari
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> References:
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> [1] https://bugs.sugarlabs.org/
>>>>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>>>>> Sugar-devel mailing list
>>>>>>>>> Sugar-devel at lists.sugarlabs.org
>>>>>>>>> http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel
>>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>>> Sugar-devel mailing list
>>>>>>> Sugar-devel at lists.sugarlabs.org
>>>>>>> http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel
>>>>>> -- 
>>>>>> James Cameron
>>>>>> http://quozl.netrek.org/
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> Sugar-devel mailing list
>>>> Sugar-devel at lists.sugarlabs.org
>>>> http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Sugar-devel mailing list
>> Sugar-devel at lists.sugarlabs.org
>> http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel

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