[csw-maintainers] Non-Maintainer Uploads (NMUs)

[Maciej (Matchek) Bliziński]

2013/8/15 Peter FELECAN <pfelecan at opencsw.org>:
>>> 2. As for the persons implementing this, from an efficiency point of
>>>    view, who are the best suited candidates in your opinion?
>>
>> Anyone who cares and understands at least a little bit of Python.
>> Whoever does it, will have to walk through multiple stages and levels
>> of data processing. If someone new takes on this task, they will learn
>> a lot about the infrastructure and improve our bus factor (yay!).
>
> My question wasn't innocent as I read some parts of the code and I must
> confess that an architecture documentation, at least, is missing to
> understand the thing. For example I'll had a great difficulty to set up
> a test platform to explore the needed modifications.

The problem with the buildfarm is that until other people tried, it
has ever been installed once. Then it was modified several times. We
didn't even know if it is still possible to install from scratch .

In January this year, I've attempted to make an instructional video
how to set up a private buildfarm. I've realized that using the
resources I had at home, it was impossible. I've set out to adapt the
code so that you can set up a build host on a small virtual machine.
I'm working on the rewrite to this day; it is my priority.

With regard to documentation, what level of detail do you think is
optimal? I'm willing to write the documentation, but I'd prefer that
someone reads it as I'm writing it so I have feedback if I'm on the
right track at all.

> I think that the
> effort needed to implement this by a novice is at least one order of
> magnitude greater than that for one who already knows the code and
> architecture.

You're right, but there's no way around this; and me implementing it
isn't a solution. It only delays the symptoms. It's better for another
person to attempt now and have me to answer their questions. If a bus
hit me, it'd be worse.

Maciej