Gentoo 1.4?

barret · n00b Joined: 09 Oct 2002 Posts: 9

Does anyone know when the official Gentoo 1.4 release is going to be? I'm anxiously waiting for it.

rac · Posted: Tue Nov 12, 2002 11:51 pm Post subject:

Moving from OTG to Gentoo Chat. OK, here's a new rule. With the exception of moderators having to do moderator-y things like writing this notice, nobody who participated in the flaming debacle that is About Gentoo 1.4... (including me - guilty as anyone) is eligible to post here. No arguments made already in that thread are to be rehashed here. Only fresh rampant speculation here, please.
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Chris Hickman · Posted: Wed Nov 13, 2002 7:56 am Post subject:

Ok mods, I apologize in advance if you feel this is inappropriate, and will understand if you feel the need to delete or edit this post to keep the thread on track.

Having said that, I made a point at the very end of the last thread that was sort of addressed by a fellow board member, but not addressed by anyone else, so I'm going to repost it here and hope to get an answer. It is on the subject of updates for the community, from the developers, and the general response from the moderators being "they don't have time, and we don't want them spending time on that anyway."

" I find it hard to believe that there isn't one developer out of however many that doesn't have 5 minutes they could spend once a week typing up a short post on this forum briefing the community on the status of this project! It could look something like this:

"Gentoo 1.4 status report: Fixed foo1 and bar2 this week. Foo3 and bar4 should be done next week. That leaves foo5 and bar6 to be completed until it is ready for release, which means the next release candidate should be out around X and the release around Y."

Even granting more space for the variables, that's about 6-7 lines tops, and it took me about a minute to write that. Yes that's right, one minute. My question is, we HAD a small updates avenue for a while, that CVS page, but it hasn't been updated in 2 months...why?

Unless they are spending every single minute outside of their real jobs on this project, there should be no reason one of the developers could this once a week. Hell, they could even trade off and have a different one do it each week, causing even less time to be spent on this! And I disagree with wanting the developers to spend "every minute" on coding and testing..if that happens, it's going to suck anyway, because they're not going to be grounded in reality icon_smile.gif (i.e. what about family, entertainment, their own personal emails, etc.). Plus they're going to have less interaction with the community that uses their product, since developer communication is a two way street...that little weekly 1 minute post would generate at least a dozen helpful emails, I'm sure. Instead we have this thread, where people are treated as idiots for wanting to know the status of a freaking open source project!"

Well?

Chris Hickman · Posted: Wed Nov 13, 2002 8:02 am Post subject:

One thing I could suggest...if version numbers are really as unimportant as some claim (and I might be inclined to agree), drop them altogether for the distribution as a whole, and instead call it "The Gentoo Project" or whatever, with no public version numbers...except for the installer, for which a version number could be viewed in the package name for download and during the install, which is really the only time it would actually be important.

As for trying 1.4 RC1...I don't want to install beta software, sorry, I want to install final releases. And I still don't think it is a crime for we vbb members to expect some kind of road map or progess update on the progress on the installer...yeah, 1.4 or 1.2, KDE, Gnome, and all other packages are the same, but the installer must be new software, or you wouldn't have developers working on it, right? And it is new software in FINAL RELEASE FORM that I would like to try and would also like to have info on it.

I'm sorry guys...but when I think of software companies where the developers don't communicate with the community, except for security updates and a bone (aka beta) now and then, I think Microsoft 1st but I think Gentoo 2nd. Maybe no one cares, but judging from the replies in the other thread, I think there's quite a few people that would agree with me there...

Chris

Lovechild · Posted: Wed Nov 13, 2002 11:40 am Post subject:

WOW... Chris I TOTALLY agree, It would be great if the devs just took a minute every other week or so to let us know what was going on and who's missing, which bugs are the showstoppers etc. It doesn't have to be big, but there's atm very little information floating around on the overall project status, even on the gentoo-dev mailing list.

I was also sad to see the Changelog page go, I loved that one, Made it easy for you to get a picture of what went into Portage.

pelux · n00b Joined: 21 Jun 2002 Posts: 20

i agree.

Mnemia · Guru Joined: 17 May 2002 Posts: 476

I hope no one takes this the wrong way because I mean no harm and I really want to be constructive and not just complain.

I don't really mind the lack of a status report personally, because I'm not sure it's necessary. That said, maybe some news would be nice - most regular users have no clue what's going on with the project now that the CVS page has gone stale. I lurk several of the mailing lists and I haven't seen anything to indicate how far along things are in ages, even in passing. Does all the real discussion take place on some closed mailing list? I can understand the need for that since people all too often inject pointless complaints, questions, badgering posts (like this one :wink:

) into such things and development is slow. But maybe some digests of that list would be nice even if posting was not allowed for non-developers.

I didn't want to say anything and I've tried to keep my mouth shut about 1.4 for 3 months, as soon as the questions started getting annoying. But it really seems like lately things have been slipping as far as some things go. The thing about new bugzilla ebuilds not going into the tree is a biggy for me - right now I'm using numerous bugzilla ebuilds, plus several items that have to be unmasked every time I rsync. It's getting to be a real hassle to maintain my system due to all the patching of the tree I'm having to do just to keep my system up to date and add cool stuff to it. That's a serious issue to me because it means that Portage is slowly losing its usefullness in my case due to the chaotic state of the version updates, etc. currently in the tree. Gone are the days when I could just rsync and emerge -pu world to update my system

It really seems like the freeze (is it still on? Does anyone know for sure?) hurt more than it helped, because I'm having more trouble with ebuilds since then due to the long delay in which package version bumps were not attended to promptly.

1.4 has been so long delayed that multiple versions of major packages like KDE, X, GNOME, Mozilla, etc have come out in the interim. Many times these were broken by various complications and took some time to fix (eg KDE). That's normal, but every time that happens it's more of a distraction that delays 1.4 even further. And some packages seem to have major problems that are making it difficult for new versions to be made. Mozilla ebuilds were always prompt in coming before 1.1, and now two Mozilla milestones have come and gone without a new ebuild in the official tree. The ones I've gotten from various places (forums, etc) were incomplete or broken for some functionality unless some major effort was put into them. That's bad.

Anyway, I mean no disrespect but I just wanted to give some constructive criticism. Let's get 1.4 out so Gentoo can get back to it's normal, sleekly polished self

jondkent · Apprentice Joined: 26 Jul 2002 Posts: 289 Location: London

Perhaps a good idea is to mimike the Debian weekly news email which is a nice snapshot of whats going on in the Debian world. Keeps all those interested informed of the lastest developements etc etc.

Jon

gravis · Posted: Wed Nov 13, 2002 1:11 pm Post subject: YEP

that would be great !

gentoo seems to be so dead... Although, I am sure the devs are working very hard !

jondkent · Apprentice Joined: 26 Jul 2002 Posts: 289 Location: London

Well, there are quite a few things going on at the moment beside the 1.4 build. The web sites are being spread out to other servers to low overall load for example, which you may have noticed.

Jon

phong · Posted: Wed Nov 13, 2002 2:20 pm Post subject:

For reference, here are a list of open channels of communications with the developers (that I'm aware of):

The gentoo-dev mailing list.
The gentoo-cvs mailing list (similar to the changelog page, though it's been down with the mail server switchover, but I think will be back soon)
IRC (the devs occasionally pop in and out there)
Your portage tree (seriously, when you do an emerge rsync you can see all the recent changes, and looking at the changelogs will give you info)
bugs.gentoo.org (you can browse bugs to your heart's content, and even comment on them)

There's lots of information out there if you look for it.
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jondkent · Apprentice Joined: 26 Jul 2002 Posts: 289 Location: London

gravis · Posted: Wed Nov 13, 2002 5:09 pm Post subject: Forums

Yes, forums are a strenght (is it the way to write it ?) of gentoo ... But i am a student, and I really don't have time to read new post... I would really appreciate weekly news (maybe a mix a important posts ??).

Chris Hickman · Posted: Wed Nov 13, 2002 5:57 pm Post subject:

pjp · Administrator Joined: 16 Apr 2002 Posts: 20485

Chris Hickman · Posted: Wed Nov 13, 2002 6:59 pm Post subject:

jondkent · Apprentice Joined: 26 Jul 2002 Posts: 289 Location: London

allesfresser · n00b Joined: 01 Nov 2002 Posts: 9 Location: SoCal, USA

Just a bit of cold comfort, perhaps, but Gentoo's not the only distro that seems to have problems communicating status to its user base. Slackware is kind of the same way... Patrick V. only updates the changelogs when he feels it's necessary (which I don't necessarily disagree with, by the way.) Gentoo seems to be the same way, but in point of fact I don't even know that I've seen a master changelog like Slackware has (other that the Announcements forum.) Perhaps that might be a good idea...?

Just a few little thoughts.

p.

pilla · Posted: Thu Nov 14, 2002 4:23 am Post subject:

That should include 99% of all users (only some n00bs will post

)

Hey, wait, I have posted there.... should not be posting here....
drop these lead pipes!! Ouch!! Ouch!! Ouch!!!!! :lol:

Jyrinx · Posted: Fri Nov 15, 2002 2:20 am Post subject:

masseya · Posted: Fri Nov 15, 2002 2:50 am Post subject:

pilla · Posted: Fri Nov 15, 2002 3:10 am Post subject:

Just to be informative, you may find in the previous thread that the main problem preventing 1.4 right now is gcc going really stable (at least, it was what I understood).

One possible solution to the information problem is that we could have some knowleadgeable person acting as a reporter. This person would not develop, but would have access to the developers' discussion and changelogs, and then he/she would tell us how things are. I don't remember if this was already suggested (probably yes).

Jyrinx · Posted: Fri Nov 15, 2002 3:58 am Post subject:

pjp · Administrator Joined: 16 Apr 2002 Posts: 20485

masseya · Posted: Fri Nov 15, 2002 4:15 am Post subject: