[Openstack-devel] Moving all git repositories to git.gplhost.com

[Thomas Goirand]

Hi Lucas,

Thanks for expressing your opinion here.

On 11/21/2013 05:57 AM, Lucas Nussbaum wrote:
> As a project, I think that it is important that we maintain packages in
> a consistant way across the whole distribution.

I agree with this view, however, this hasn't happen, and it's not taking
such a direction. There's been many voices in Debian so that we all move
to Git as a standard. I'm surprised that you write what's above, but at
the same time, I'm not aware of any of such decision Debian wide, or any
move on such direction.

Quite opposed to what you wrote, I've seen a lot of resistance in some
groups to move from SVN to Git, and we're still stuck with some
non-standard VCS in many places. Is this something that is being worked
on? Are you personally involved in such a move?

I'd be very happy if in Debian, we adopted the kind of culture there is
with OpenStack, with gating (eg: unit tests) on each git push. We could
have piuparts + lintian (and friends) checks preventing pushing bad patches.

> That involves using
> standard tools and infrastructure, unless you have a very good reason to
> do so.

I have stated very good reasons indeed.

BTW, as much as I have seen, this is left to the discretion of a package
maintainer. And since I'm the only one doing the work right now, I
believe I could be entitled to do such a decision. However, if I'm
discussing in this list, it really is because I don't want to be the
only one taking the decision, and I want others to be involved.

> Throwing suggestions, "views" and FUD at Alioth admins and DSA during a
> crisis, and then complaining that you are not being heard, is totally
> useless and counterproductive.

Right, I shouldn't have write that part. I agree it's "useless and
counterproductive". However, I have stated facts and problems which I
faced using Alioth. This isn't FUD. My point was *not* to point fingers
at the Alioth admins, but to find a solution for the packaging of
OpenStack so that we have a friendly environment that matches the needs
of the team (which currently involves me only). Please also consider
that I've been an Alioth user for years, and that I have reached its
limit. Cloning 150 MB of data 4 times on each push shows its limit...

> Alioth is a key part of Debian's
> infrastructure, and I agree that we should address the underlying
> problems so that the same chain of events doesn't ever happen again.

Again, this isn't only because of the down time. I have stated already
some problems which I faced, and there's no sign that this will be
improved (like the fail2ban, slowness, and such). If you now tell me
that there's going to be improvements, then great! I probably can use it
again later on. If we move to openstack-infra as I hope, then probably
we will publish the source copy on Alioth rather than on Github. That'd
be perfect.

> But your should be supportive and cooperative, not throw shit at some
> Debian contributors and force other to go throw loops to contribute to
> the Openstack packages

I don't see how there would be more loops. If anyone who has contributed
in the past to the OpenStack packages want a root account on my Git
server, I would happily provide it. However, and that's the same for the
admin account on Alioth, this type of rights cannot be granted to anyone
which we never heard of.

> (which are not *your* packages, btw).

Take a big care with this kind of sentence. I've been alone doing the
work, and there's currently no sign that this will change. So yes, I
believe that I have the full rights to choose which type of environment
I work with.

> Also, I would like to use this opportunity to ask you to clarify your
> situation regarding the OpenStack packages. I've heard that you were
> paid to work on the OpenStack Debian packages.
> - Could you clarify how that affects your work on those packages?
> - How do you protect Debian from being manipulated, through you, by
>   the company that pays you?
> - Given the context, did you consider defining a more formal
>   decision-making process together with the other co-maintainers, for
>   important packaging decisions?

Now *this* is FUD... Instead of writing the above, I would strongly
suggest you to reply to my private email, asking you to do take measures
so that what happened with Alioth doesn't happen again, especially the
part where there was no communication during the crisis from the Alioth
admins.

Anyway, let me reply to this point by point to the above.

> - Could you clarify how that affects your work on those packages?

eNovance has been of great help, providing CI testings using the tempest
functional test suite. Also, since they use my packages in production,
they provide a very good feedback and Q/A.

> - How do you protect Debian from being manipulated, through you, by
>   the company that pays you?

Exactly what kind of manipulation are you talking about? Please clarify.
eNovance has been helping, and we should be greatfull that a company
sponsor some Debian works. This is rare enough so that it should be
underlined. They haven't manipulate me or the packaging in any way.

> - Given the context, did you consider defining a more formal
>   decision-making process together with the other co-maintainers, for
>   important packaging decisions?

Which co-maintainers are you talking about exactly? I'd be very happy if
there was some, though that's unfortunately not the case. As I wrote,
only Gustavo helped a little bit for Heat (the client and the cfn-tools,
probably something else that I forgot?). Also, which type of decision do
you think there would be? There hasn't been much of these...

Anyway, if we move to something like OpenStack infra, *and* there's
enough contributors willing to do patch reviews, then we'll be using
Gerrit, and then of course, there will be a very healthy
"decision-making process". However, if I continue to be the only one
working on the packaging, it will not help if nobody else is involved.

On 11/21/2013 06:02 AM, Lucas Nussbaum wrote:
> Additional note: I've seen that the idea of moving the packaging repo
> to openstack.org was mentioned.
>
> I don't have the same concerns with that idea as with moving the git
> repositories to the employer of one of the maintainers.

Oh gosh... Now, there's a huge confusion here. GPLHost is *my* company,
and to some degrees (there's some share holders of GPLHost who hold a
minority of the shares), all of the GPLHost servers can be considered
mine. So, no, git.gplhost.com is *not* a server of my "employer". By the
way, eNovance is *not* my employer, they do only sponsor my packaging
work, and for the moment, I am still independent.

So I do have total freedom here.

> However, this is an important decision, which has both advantages and
> disadvantages, and I hope that you will discuss that idea with the
> other contributors to OpenStack packaging before "announcing" a
> decision about that.

As I wrote before, since Gustavo (which is the only person who
contributed during the last cycle) has concerns, then I will try to find
another solution. I am however still concerned that Alioth, in its
current state, isn't fit for the job. I would be very happy if there was
some changes so that it is. Up to you to make this happen, Lucas. I
don't want to spend some energy and time on this, OpenStack is enough
work already.

Thomas