[etoys-dev] Bug tracking in Linux

[Bert Freudenberg]

On 21.12.2009, at 03:30, Milan Zimmerman (JIRA) wrote:
> 
> 
>    [ http://tracker.squeakland.org/browse/SQ-638 ] 
> 
> Milan Zimmerman commented on SQ-638:
> ------------------------------------
> 
> Hi Bert: I see you already discovered this recording problem long time ago. Recording is not a problem on Windows (I tested it today as well), so it seems either Unix VM or XO distribution specific. So maybe we do not need equivalent ticket here...

Maybe not. But maybe too ;)

[ As a side note, it's preferable to have those kinds of discussion on the mailing list rather than in the bug tracker. It's good practice:
http://producingoss.com/en/bug-tracker-usage.html ]

If the Squeakland developers want to know which problems exist with Etoys, then we expect the Squeakland bug tracker to be conclusive. So for that reason alone I'd think a ticket is warranted.

The main question is who will see to it this gets fixed. It does sound like a VM problem to me. But since Etoys is one of the rare Squeak applications recording sound, we should keep track of it. Not necessarily fixing it ourselves, but trying to get the right people looking into it. 

So the problem was observed on a XO using the OLPC operating system. So dev.laptop.org is the right place to report the bug. But that OS is a Fedora derivative, and it uses the Fedora Squeak packages. So the OLPC Etoys maintainer should file an upstream bug with Fedora. But Fedora gets Etoys and Squeak from somewhere else, so Fedora's Etoys maintainer should file an upstream bug with Squeakland. Then someone at Squeakland who feels responsible for Linux VM issues with Etoys should file and monitor an upstream bug with squeak.org. Once a fix is provided it flows downstream from Squeak to Fedora to OLPC. (it's even a bit more complicated because the VM and Etoys come from different places, but you get the idea)

Taking short cuts to this longwinded procedure is necessary in the short term because Etoys is just now getting established as a regular part of Linux distributions. But building that network of maintainers is essential. There are just too many ways to get Etoys to be able to track it all on our own:

http://wiki.squeakland.org/display/sq/Bug+Tracking

The situation is different on Mac and Windows where so far Squeakland is the only "vendor". But IMHO Squeakland cannot and should not try to be the vendor for Etoys on Linux. It's a Good Thing (tm) there are no RPMs nor DEBs on Squeakland for Etoys 4, because that would interfere with and undermine the efforts of maintainers in the distros. This of course should be mentioned on the downloads page, and a tar ball should be provided so that packagers know where to start and get new releases from.

- Bert -