RFC: Gentoo News file about GNOME 3.2's unmasking
 

Hello folks,

Attached is a short news file announcing the unmasking of GNOME 3.2
with a link to the upgrade guide. Since GNOME 3 is already in the
tree, and the news file content is straightforward, I'd like to commit
this in 24hrs if there are no problems.

It can also be found here:
http://dev.gentoo.org/~nirbheek/gnome/2011-11-26-gnome3-unmask.en.txt
(will be updated on the basis of comments).

A question: it currently restricts only on the basis of If-Installed,
but is there a workaround for the absence Display-If-Visible filter?
If there isn't, I'll commit it as-is.

Thanks!

--
~Nirbheek Chauhan

Gentoo GNOME+Mozilla Team
Title: Unmasking of and Upgrade to GNOME 3.2
Author: Nirbheek Chauhan <nirbheek@gentoo.org>
Content-Type: text/plain
Posted: 2011-11-26
Revision: 1
News-Item-Format: 1.0
Display-If-Installed: <gnome-base/gnome-session-3.2

We are pleased to announce the addition to tree and unmasking of GNOME-3.2.
Users are strongly encouraged to read the GNOME 3.2 Guide. GNOME 3 has
a massively changed interface and requires working 3D drivers for use, however
there is a fallback mode which is very similar to GNOME 2 and does not require
3D acceleration.

Please read the Gnome 3.2 Guide:
http://gnome.gentoo.org/howtos/gnome-3.2-upgrade.xml

RFC: Gentoo News file about GNOME 3.2's unmasking
 

On Sat, Nov 26, 2011 at 2:13 AM, Nirbheek Chauhan <nirbheek@gentoo.org> wrote:
> Since GNOME 3 is already in the
> tree, and the news file content is straightforward, I'd like to commit
> this in 24hrs if there are no problems.

If we're gong to go to all the trouble to create upgrade guides and
news/etc, wouldn't it make sense to send out the news item a few days
BEFORE making the change?

If a user runs emerge -u world daily they wouldn't even see this news item.

Obviously the horses have already left the barn, but maybe this is
something we can do differently when it comes time to stabilize the
change?

I'm sure this was inadvertent, but looking beyond just this particular
incident is there anything we can do to improve our use of news items?
Since we're a distro that uses rolling releases users really have no
way to know what to expect after any particular emerge world. It
could be some completely routine bump that isn't going to cause
problems, or it could require extensive rebuilding, config-file
tweaking, and risk of the system not booting. News is really the only
way to give them a heads-up in advance. Granted, something like a
gnome/kde bump is going to pull in so many packages that I think most
users would exercise caution, so that mitigates the issue a bit.

Rich

RFC: Gentoo News file about GNOME 3.2's unmasking
 

On Sat, Nov 26, 2011 at 5:56 PM, Rich Freeman <rich0@gentoo.org> wrote:
> On Sat, Nov 26, 2011 at 2:13 AM, Nirbheek Chauhan <nirbheek@gentoo.org> wrote:
>> Since GNOME 3 is already in the
>> tree, and the news file content is straightforward, I'd like to commit
>> this in 24hrs if there are no problems.
>
> If we're gong to go to all the trouble to create upgrade guides and
> news/etc, wouldn't it make sense to send out the news item a few days
> BEFORE making the change?
>

That was indeed the intention, but there was a miscommunication.

> If a user runs emerge -u world daily they wouldn't even see this news item.
>
> Obviously the horses have already left the barn, but maybe this is
> something we can do differently when it comes time to stabilize the
> change?
>

All is not quite lost. An elog was added to the end of
gnome-base/gnome-core-libs which would be merged very early on in the
upgrade process. Of course this is not a substitute at all, but does
alleviate the issue. A forums post was also made by tetromino.

> I'm sure this was inadvertent, but looking beyond just this particular
> incident is there anything we can do to improve our use of news items?
> *Since we're a distro that uses rolling releases users really have no
> way to know what to expect after any particular emerge world. *It
> could be some completely routine bump that isn't going to cause
> problems, or it could require extensive rebuilding, config-file
> tweaking, and risk of the system not booting. *News is really the only
> way to give them a heads-up in advance. *Granted, something like a
> gnome/kde bump is going to pull in so many packages that I think most
> users would exercise caution, so that mitigates the issue a bit.
>

I think that the addition of a Display-If-Visible option would help,
along with the addition of news file procedures to the devmanual and
the quizzes. Even I didn't know where to commit the news file before
some creative googling today gave me the right answer.

--
~Nirbheek Chauhan

Gentoo GNOME+Mozilla Team

RFC: Gentoo News file about GNOME 3.2's unmasking
 

On Sat, Nov 26, 2011 at 7:56 AM, Nirbheek Chauhan <nirbheek@gentoo.org> wrote:
> I think that the addition of a Display-If-Visible option would help,
> along with the addition of news file procedures to the devmanual and
> the quizzes. Even I didn't know where to commit the news file before
> some creative googling today gave me the right answer.

++

As I recall it took me some time to find it as well the first time.

Rich

RFC: Gentoo News file about GNOME 3.2's unmasking
 

On Sat, Nov 26, 2011 at 7:56 AM, Nirbheek Chauhan <nirbheek@gentoo.org> wrote:
> On Sat, Nov 26, 2011 at 5:56 PM, Rich Freeman <rich0@gentoo.org> wrote:
>> On Sat, Nov 26, 2011 at 2:13 AM, Nirbheek Chauhan <nirbheek@gentoo.org> wrote:
>>> Since GNOME 3 is already in the
>>> tree, and the news file content is straightforward, I'd like to commit
>>> this in 24hrs if there are no problems.
>>
>> If we're gong to go to all the trouble to create upgrade guides and
>> news/etc, wouldn't it make sense to send out the news item a few days
>> BEFORE making the change?
>>
>
> That was indeed the intention, but there was a miscommunication.

On my part, it was a failure of imagination. I had always seen large
changes dumped in ~arch with no warning or documentation (even the
png15 upgrade didn't get a news item until libpng-1.5.x went stable),
and so unquestioningly came to assume that it's the way things are
done because that's the way things were always done. Then some hours
after gnome-3 was unmasked, I saw Nirbheek talking on IRC about making
a news item, and winced: of course! why didn't I think of that? As an
~arch user, I had not particularly enjoyed massive changes being
dumped on my head without warning, so now that I was a developer and
it was in my power to write news items, why didn't I think of writing
one before unmasking?

-Alexandre

RFC: Gentoo News file about GNOME 3.2's unmasking
 

On Sat, Nov 26, 2011 at 9:35 AM, Alexandre Rostovtsev
<tetromino@gentoo.org> wrote:
> On my part, it was a failure of imagination. I had always seen large
> changes dumped in ~arch with no warning or documentation (even the
> png15 upgrade didn't get a news item until libpng-1.5.x went stable),

Of course - just figured I'd point it out so that in the future we
might improve.

Plus, you can recycle the same news item for the eventual
stabilization, so it is the same amount of effort (minus any tweaks
from lessons-learned).

If we don't fix the visibility issue then we'll probably want to do
something to re-issue this one, otherwise for stable users this news
will be a distant memory.

Rich

RFC: Gentoo News file about GNOME 3.2's unmasking
 

On L, 2011-11-26 at 12:43 +0530, Nirbheek Chauhan wrote:
> Hello folks,
>
> Attached is a short news file announcing the unmasking of GNOME 3.2
> with a link to the upgrade guide. Since GNOME 3 is already in the
> tree, and the news file content is straightforward, I'd like to commit
> this in 24hrs if there are no problems.
>
> It can also be found here:
> http://dev.gentoo.org/~nirbheek/gnome/2011-11-26-gnome3-unmask.en.txt
> (will be updated on the basis of comments).
>
> A question: it currently restricts only on the basis of If-Installed,
> but is there a workaround for the absence Display-If-Visible filter?
> If there isn't, I'll commit it as-is.

I think it'd be bad to get the news item out like that now for stable
users, and then after a long time once we stabilize it (if ever), it's
been long forgotten and marked away as read. Maybe the keyword checks
should be re-added for now and edited away later if necessary (before
stabling)?

RFC: Gentoo News file about GNOME 3.2's unmasking
 

On Sat, Nov 26, 2011 at 11:51 PM, Mart Raudsepp <leio@gentoo.org> wrote:
> On L, 2011-11-26 at 12:43 +0530, Nirbheek Chauhan wrote:
>> A question: it currently restricts only on the basis of If-Installed,
>> but is there a workaround for the absence Display-If-Visible filter?
>> If there isn't, I'll commit it as-is.
>
> I think it'd be bad to get the news item out like that now for stable
> users, and then after a long time once we stabilize it (if ever), it's
> been long forgotten and marked away as read. Maybe the keyword checks
> should be re-added for now and edited away later if necessary (before
> stabling)?
>

I actually removed that keyword thing because I wasn't sure if it
worked with ~arch specifiers. I think it's easier to just bump the
news file version when we stabilize 3.2 so that people see it again.
Presuming that that will work.

--
~Nirbheek Chauhan

Gentoo GNOME+Mozilla Team

RFC: Gentoo News file about GNOME 3.2's unmasking
 

On 11/26/2011 10:55 AM, Nirbheek Chauhan wrote:
> On Sat, Nov 26, 2011 at 11:51 PM, Mart Raudsepp <leio@gentoo.org> wrote:
>> On L, 2011-11-26 at 12:43 +0530, Nirbheek Chauhan wrote:
>>> A question: it currently restricts only on the basis of If-Installed,
>>> but is there a workaround for the absence Display-If-Visible filter?
>>> If there isn't, I'll commit it as-is.
>>
>> I think it'd be bad to get the news item out like that now for stable
>> users, and then after a long time once we stabilize it (if ever), it's
>> been long forgotten and marked away as read. Maybe the keyword checks
>> should be re-added for now and edited away later if necessary (before
>> stabling)?
>>
>
> I actually removed that keyword thing because I wasn't sure if it
> worked with ~arch specifiers. I think it's easier to just bump the
> news file version when we stabilize 3.2 so that people see it again.
> Presuming that that will work.

GLEP 42 refers to GLEP 22, which says nothing of ~arch specifiers. The
current portage code literally compares the news item's keyword to the
current profile's ARCH variable, so ~arch specifiers will not match. The
code is in the DisplayKeywordRestriction class:

http://git.overlays.gentoo.org/gitweb/?p=proj/portage.git;a=blob;f=pym/portage/news.py#l326

--
Thanks,
Zac

RFC: Gentoo News file about GNOME 3.2's unmasking
 

On Sun, Nov 27, 2011 at 1:36 AM, Zac Medico <zmedico@gentoo.org> wrote:
> GLEP 42 refers to GLEP 22, which says nothing of ~arch specifiers. The
> current portage code literally compares the news item's keyword to the
> current profile's ARCH variable, so ~arch specifiers will not match. The
> code is in the DisplayKeywordRestriction class:
>
> *http://git.overlays.gentoo.org/gitweb/?p=proj/portage.git;a=blob;f=pym/portage/news.py#l326
>

Thanks for the information, I've committed the newsfile as is:
http://sources.gentoo.org/cgi-bin/viewvc.cgi/gentoo-news/2011/2011-11-27-gnome3-unmask/

PS: what do we have to do to get Display-If-Visible implemented? I
volunteer to do whatever I can. :)

--
~Nirbheek Chauhan

Gentoo GNOME+Mozilla Team