okupy, a Django rewrite of www.g.o
 

Hi,
yesterday I read Theo's blog post [1] about his upcoming GSoC project,
which apparently is about using Django for www.g.o, and has some
implications for the way how the GDP works.

I have a few comments/notes that I want to say here. They reflect my
personal opinion, which is based on six years of working with docs. I
have no idea whether they match the opinion of the rest of the GDP.

First of all, a suggestion -- maybe, when you want to do something to
the docs (like change the presentation layer, integrate a WYSIWYG
editor, convert to git from CVS, or stuff like that -- which are all the
objectives of the project [2]), maybe it would be a great idea to
contact the GDP first. There are fine contacts for chatting with us,
either the nice gentoo-doc ML, or the #gentoo-doc IRC channel, or the
docs-team@g.o alias. I have no idea whether Theo contacted anyone
directly, but I'm sure I haven't received anything through any of these
channels. That's bad, and it means that there's a communication problem
somewhere.

The project description speaks about a perceived problem with editing
the GuideXML files. This issue has been raised many times. My impression
is that people failed to support that assertion with anything
substantial; the people who argue that "there should be something" are
typically not doing much GDP work. That impression might be flawed, of
course.

Theo also mentions that "By all appearances Gorg has been abandoned as a
project. This has resulted in difficulty in maintaining the Gentoo
website, and also makes the work of updating the website's design or
functionality all the more troublesome." and goes on to mention that
"Gorg as an abandoned project is suffering from bugs that get pilled up,
not to mention possible security risks that may arise". Can I ask for a
reference to the "bugs that get pilled up", and to Gorg resulting in
"difficulty in maintaining the Gentoo website"?

Please don't get me wrong, I certainly do not want to hinder any efforts
targeted at making our website better, or our workflow faster for those
that really contribute. I just tend to get slightly upset when I see an
approved GSoC project which will, IMHO, fundamentally change the way how
GDP works, then read a few assertions that fail to persuade me, and
realize that I can't find any notice of what is going to happen until
after the project got approved -- that's a sure way to piss me of.

Anyway, I really hope I'm just a weird, grumpy guy who somehow missed a
well-targeted discussion. Hence, please do correct my impressions.

In the meanwhile, have fun
Jan

[1] http://blogs.gentoo.org/tampakrap/accepted-for-gentoo-gsoc-2011/
[2]
http://www.google-melange.com/gsoc/project/google/gsoc2011/tampakrap/27001
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okupy, a Django rewrite of www.g.o
 

On Thu, Jun 2, 2011 at 1:13 PM, Jan Kundrát <jkt@gentoo.org> wrote:
> Hi,

Hi, thanks for your mail. My answer will be short though :)

> First of all, a suggestion -- maybe, when you want to do something to
> the docs (like change the presentation layer, integrate a WYSIWYG
> editor, convert to git from CVS, or stuff like that -- which are all the
> objectives of the project [2]), maybe it would be a great idea to
> contact the GDP first. There are fine contacts for chatting with us,
> either the nice gentoo-doc ML, or the #gentoo-doc IRC channel, or the
> docs-team@g.o alias. I have no idea whether Theo contacted anyone
> directly, but I'm sure I haven't received anything through any of these
> channels. That's bad, and it means that there's a communication problem
> somewhere.

Sure, I contacted Josh who showed much interest to my idea, and Infra
to make sure they (we) are willing to replace gorg

> Theo also mentions that "By all appearances Gorg has been abandoned as a
> project. This has resulted in difficulty in maintaining the Gentoo
> website, and also makes the work of updating the website's design or
> functionality all the more troublesome." and goes on to mention that
> "Gorg as an abandoned project is suffering from bugs that get pilled up,
> not to mention possible security risks that may arise". Can I ask for a
> reference to the "bugs that get pilled up", and to Gorg resulting in
> "difficulty in maintaining the Gentoo website"?

Gorg currently has two very important bugs open in bugzilla. We've
faced a couple more recently. The reality is that Gorg's developer
retired and stopped working on it, and noone in infra is willing to
touch it as well. Plus, we don't like using outdated / ambandoned
projects, especially for security reasons.

> Please don't get me wrong, I certainly do not want to hinder any efforts
> targeted at making our website better, or our workflow faster for those
> that really contribute. I just tend to get slightly upset when I see an
> approved GSoC project which will, IMHO, fundamentally change the way how
> GDP works, then read a few assertions that fail to persuade me, and
> realize that I can't find any notice of what is going to happen until
> after the project got approved -- that's a sure way to piss me of.
>

Nothing will change for GDP. The GuideXML will continue to exist, you
will be able to edit XML files directly as usual. There will be only
improvements here (like stats for translators, an editor, etc).

> Anyway, I really hope I'm just a weird, grumpy guy who somehow missed a
> well-targeted discussion. Hence, please do correct my impressions.
>

If you need any other information from my part, I'll be happy to provide it.

> In the meanwhile, have fun
> Jan