Re: (again) - cooperation with GNOME

On Mon, 12 Sep 2005, Robert Staudinger wrote:

> Date: Mon, 12 Sep 2005 17:13:05 +0200
> From: Robert Staudinger <robert.staudinger@gmail.com>
> To: abiword-dev <abiword-dev@abisource.com>
> Subject: (again) - cooperation with GNOME
>
>
> Hi,
>
> the attempts to cooperate more closely with GNOME didn't really work
> out in the 2.12 release cycle[1]. Major concerns have been:

> (1) We have our own CVS
> (2) We have our own Bugzilla
> (3) We have limited support for a11y

> Maybe we could try again to step by step build up a closer relation
> between the GNOME and AbiWord. So I propose that we discuss among the
> AbiWord developers first and make proposals to the GNOME folks after
> we agree on what we want.
>
> IIRC the discussions on IRC we are not really ready to give up our own
> server and move to GNOME CVS or bugzilla.

... more importantly the reasons given for this was account control or at
least that is what I was told. From what I understood the technical
issues were very much secondary.

If there are issues about getting/giving accounts then the Gnome people
need to be informed their system is not flexible enough so they can at
least try to do something about it (and depending on how you ask they will
probably at least look into it).

> So we'll likely have to work out compromises between us and GNOME.
>
> CVS
> ===
> abi -> gnome: Maybe we could replicate our CVS repository to GNOME's
> (the "abi" module would prolly do for now). The master repository
> would certainly stay on blueant. There seem to be commercial CVS
> replication solutions available, a quick check on google didn't reveal
> anything open source.
> Maybe it would be as simple as committing the diffs from the
> cvs-commit mailing list by using a periodically invoked script.

uwog mentioned on IRC that some of our existing CVS modules could be
cleared out. That should propbably happen before any attepts to replicate
it.

> gnome -> abi: We have the possibility to indicate in our HACKING file
> that we won't accept commits without permission. This doesn't seem to
> apply to translations however. We'd need a mailing list that's fueled
> from the commits into the gnome repository so we know what's going on.
>
> I'd volunteer for taking care about cross-porting issues and
> (merge-)conflicts that turn up.
>
> Bugzilla
> =======
> Most likely we'd like to keep that too. GNOME seems to have a custom
> start page / "simple bug assistant" (or is that just because they are
> using a newer version?). It should be possible to create a fake
> "abiword" bugzilla module, that forwards to our bugzilla page.

That is something we could use too it just requires some configuration.
Thankfully Gnome doesn't force everyone to sue the simple bug assistant,
unlike KDE which forces everyone through the painfully tedious process
(which probably results in slightly better quality bug reports, not that
it is something you could quantify).

The abiword bugzilla is version(s) ahead of theirs

From conversations on IRC there seem to be people interested in trying
again when their Bugzilla is up to date (I think it was Olav I was
chatting with).

Abiword could use Gnome bug buddy properly if patches were provided to
make it aware of our bugzilla. I recall the Gnome abiword build was
using Bug Buddy but as there is no listing for abiword in Bugzilla there
isn't anywhere to put the reports and it ends up being horribly confusing.

In theory bug-buddy is already supposed to be able to work with more than
one bugzilla and it is only a matter of a patch or two to get things
configured properly.

I dont know if you noticed the merging of Evolution into Gnome bugzilla
but it was quite interesting. If we were interested in merging Abisource
bugzilla with Gnome bugzilla we might want to start adjusting our
configuration to resemble theirs a bit more closely.

For example we have a keyword:rfe and a severity:enhancment, gnome uses
only severity:enhancment.

we have a keyword:needinfo and gnome has a resolution:NEEDINFO

about half of our keywords would need to go (the platform specific
keywords for starters)

We have a keyword for Gtk2 specific problems but it is not like anyone is
supporting any other version of Gtk so it is largerly unnecessary

...

basically if we think we might ever want to merge our bugzilla with Gnome
bugzilla there is a lot of reorganisation which could be done to make it
easier if were ever to happen and would probably server as useful
maintaince even if we dont.

> A11y
> ====
> There is a bug filed already, we just need to hack it.
>
> [1] http://mail.gnome.org/archives/gnome-hackers/2005-June/msg00016.html

Mirroring in Gnome CVS would make could translation a whole lot easier
if abiword became just another set of po files added to the list. Our
unique situation might make that harder than it seems though.

Sincerely

Alan Horkan

Inkscape http://inkscape.org
Abiword http://www.abisource.com
Dia http://gnome.org/projects/dia/
Open Clip Art http://OpenClipArt.org

Alan's Diary http://advogato.org/person/AlanHorkan/
Received on Mon, 12 Sep 2005 16:44:27 +0100 (BST)