[squeak-dev] Re: Unix updates

Igor Stasenko siguctua at gmail.com
Wed Dec 16 20:34:20 UTC 2009


2009/12/16 José Luis Redrejo <jredrejo at gmail.com>:
>
>
>
>
> Hi Andreas, from my experience as Debian maintainer of both: etoys and
> squeak-vm, what I've mainly missed is:
> a) help with the issues in non 32 bits platforms
> b) collaboration with the people who package the vm in squeak.org
> c) help with the issues with the Squeak license
> For a): adding new plugins needed by the etoys image (RomePlugin,
> GstreamerPlugin) is great when the plugin can be compiled, but it's only
> tested in a 32 bits platform, and doesn't use to follow the gnu/autotools
> standards that most unix applications use. As a result: it doesn't work in
> other platforms, specially important are the problems in amd64. Ian Piumarta
> fixed the problems the vm had in 64 bits, but whenever a new plugin is
> added, new bugs are added, and Ian is not responsible of every plugin. The
> bugs I added to mantis have stayed there for years.
> For b): there were some discussions in this list. As result of them I
> created a group in alioth.debian.org to work together, I offered all my help
> and nobody has added a line of code.
> For c): I don't think I need to explain anything about the license. I "met"
> Squeak on 2003, and the steps to get a "free" image begun on 2007, four
> years after being asking/trying a solution. Anyway, Squeak development is so
> "weird" in the software world that I don't think the final problems will
> ever solved: bootstraping an image from sources, or have any way to
> demonstrate (working from the OS, not inside Squeak) that the image contains
> only free code.
>
> c) causes etoys to be in the non-free section of Debian
> b) has caused the current delay in Debian, because I've been waiting for  6
> months, just in case anybody wants to help. I've already given up, so I will
> upload the latest version before the end of this month. Before the setting
> up of the collaborative project I kept the squeak-vm very updated in Debian.
> In fact  I used to compile it from svn, to get the latest patches, trying to
> make the images work with the newest plugins. But, even when the image was
> the same in Debian than in squeak.org, and the vm was in Debian newer and
> more polished than the one in squeak.org, I always saw how squeak.org
> documentation  recommended for Debian (and derivatives) users installing the
> packages avoiding to use the standard way in the distribution, and making it
> almost impossible to use for a non-experienced user in Linux.
> a) is still causing me headaches when the users fill bugs and ask for help.
> My 20 cents

Jose, we are discussed this topic during the last Board meeting.

Let me familiarize you with some of our opinions.

First and foremost, a distro maintainers should collaborate closely
with VM maintainers.

Currently, David T.Levis is a VM-dev Team Leader, so anyone who wants
to get the latest status on
VM, report bugs, ask for a fix and so on, should primarily contact
with him, or as usual post on vm-dev.
Dave runs things pretty well during last months, fixing bugs & pushing
them to new releases.
He also very responsive and helpful and reacts quickly on anything
related to vm.

Second, we think that best place for discussions concerning packaging
(no matter what platform is) is vm-dev list,
instead of a separate list. This including reporting a problems, bugs,
and announcing new package releases.
Lets not scatter resources.

And finally, we are welcome anyone who willing to step up and become a
maintainer of distribution on linux, as well as any other platfom.

Please, contact us directly on any outstanding issue, which you think
prevents you from moving forward.
I think we will manage to solve any of them if we will work together as a team.

> Regards
> José L.
>
>


-- 
Best regards,
Igor Stasenko AKA sig.



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