[csw-maintainers] questions about GAR, history, and naming

[Dagobert Michelsen]

Hi Phil,

Am 06.10.2009 um 18:02 schrieb Philip Brown:
> On Tue, Oct 6, 2009 at 1:43 AM, Maciej (Matchek) Blizinski
> <maciej at opencsw.org> wrote:
>> I'd like us to make development
>> decisions based on current needs rather than aesthetics. The
>> restructuring of GAR can be filed in an issue tracking system so the
>> idea doesn't get lost or forgotten.
>
> Hmm. an idea that is filed away and never acted upon, may as well be  
> forgotten.
> The idea of having a proper "gar package" that is a CSW package, has
> been lurking around for YEARS now, and never acted upon.

It is not forgotten. A GAR package is lurking around in newpkgs/
since May and you didn't want to release it ;-) To get something
done there are two ways: either do it yourself or find someone to
do it. I may have put more energy to source packages if you would
show real interest in GAR by using it for your packages or at
least to a level where you can reproduce a build without the
demand that "someone writes up an interface for me that I can
do 'gartool compile <pkg>'". And now you are proposing a complete
rewrite of GAR which means at least a week of work for me only
for you to feel better about it. If you want a rewrite of GAR
at least learn the basics on how to use it.

>> Is "to do things cleanly" the only reason, or are there more reasons?
>
> Well, to me, it is also somewhat of a branding issue. We cant really
> publicise our build system fairly. It's almost as bad as sun labelling
> everything they do, "sun java xxxx" :-)
> Claiming "we use gar", at this point,is very wrong. What we use is not
> "gar", but "gar++".
> And the longer we wait to fix this issue, the worse it gets.

It is perfectly ok to say that we use "gar++" to build our packages.
The sources are available at SF under the project name "gar".

> It would have been easier to fix this a year ago, than now, I think
> everyone can agree.
> It stands to reason it will be even more difficult to fix this a year
> in the future, than to fix this now.
>
> It bothers me to the point where I would do the work myself, but all
> my "free" time goes to package release issues, etc.

That is a real pitty as I don't have time for this either.


Best regards

   -- Dago