Greetings from Freeciv upstream
 

Dear Freeciv packagers

I write as one of the upstream Freeciv maintainers. As freeciv 2.3 release
comes closer, I think it's time to check that everything is fine in
packaging front also. If we at upstream can somehow improve our support
for your packaging effort, let me know. It's best interest of everyone
that end-user gets best possible freeciv.

We've added new README.packaging document to freeciv source tree that
hopefully makes your life easier and gives you tips how to make your
freeciv packaging even better.
Latest version of the document related to freeciv 2.3 can be seen in
http://svn.gna.org/viewcvs/*checkout*/freeciv/branches/S2_3/doc/README.packaging
For those who want to look further in to the future, version related to current
development version of freeciv (that will result in freeciv 2.4):
http://svn.gna.org/viewcvs/*checkout*/freeciv/trunk/doc/README.packaging
Please send me comments also about this document. What more should it cover?
Do you have any insight that might help other packagers?

As for the 2.3 schedule, we've already released beta3. Next release from S2_3
branch will be either beta4, or if things look good, RC1 in late March.
Before final 2.3.0 release there will be (at least) one more 2.2 bugfix
release. 2.2.5 will be released by the end of February.

Freeciv 2.3 will have no kind of gtk3 support. Current plan is to have
separate gtk2 and gtk3 clients available in 2.4. It's too early to tell which
one will be default one. No dates are yet set for 2.4 release, but it
seems that there will be about 1.5 years between 2.2.0 and 2.3.0 and
another 1.5 years from 2.3.0 would be Dec 2012.
In general I would be interested to hear about gtk3 migration policies
of different distributions.

This new need for gtk3 client means we have to cut effort in something
else. Unless some new face(s) take active role in Qt-client development,
it will be almost halted.

I also wonder if there should be discussion about freeciv release dates
between upstream and packagers. Sometimes it could make sense to make
freeciv release a bit earlier if that would mean meeting deadline for
release of some distribution. Currently we have no idea of such deadlines.
Could you inform me when at latest you need freeciv releases so you could
still get it in to next release of your distribution?


Regards

- ML

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Greetings from Freeciv upstream
 

Hi Marko

On 14/02/11 09:46 AM, Marko Lindqvist wrote:
> I also wonder if there should be discussion about freeciv release dates
> between upstream and packagers. Sometimes it could make sense to make
> freeciv release a bit earlier if that would mean meeting deadline for
> release of some distribution. Currently we have no idea of such deadlines.
> Could you inform me when at latest you need freeciv releases so you could
> still get it in to next release of your distribution?

Ubuntu's feature freeze is on February 24[1], that's pretty much the
deadline, although there is a very good process for feature freeze
exceptions[2].

Freeciv is currently[3] just a synced[4] package from Debian, so it's
probably best to just keep Debian up to date and then synchronise in Ubuntu.

I'm a big freeciv fan and signed up for the pkg-freeciv-devel mailing
list, if there's something I can do to help feel free to give me a poke,
I can't do anything about the gtk migration though :)

-Jonathan

[1] https://wiki.ubuntu.com/NattyReleaseSchedule
[2] https://wiki.ubuntu.com/FreezeExceptionProcess
[3]
http://packages.ubuntu.com/search?keywords=freeciv&searchon=names&suite=natty &section=all
[4] https://wiki.ubuntu.com/SyncRequestProcess

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Greetings from Freeciv upstream
 

On 14 February 2011 20:23, Jonathan Carter (highvoltage)
<jonathan@ubuntu.com> wrote:
>
> Ubuntu's feature freeze is on February 24[1], that's pretty much the
> deadline, although there is a very good process for feature freeze
> exceptions[2].
>
> Freeciv is currently[3] just a synced[4] package from Debian, so it's
> probably best to just keep Debian up to date and then synchronise in Ubuntu.

Thanks for great info. If I understood it correctly, our bugfix-only
release 2.2.5 a couple of days after Ubuntu feature freeze actually
should qualify as freeze exception. But that would require that Debian
packet to be synced from becomes available in a timely manner and
introduces no new non-bugfix changes, and that someone requests sync.

NEWS-2.2.5 document listing fixes already in place can be found from
http://freeciv.wikia.com/wiki/NEWS-2.2.5
I personally am still going to fix several memory leaks, one of them
huge one in SDL-client: https://gna.org/bugs/?17716


- ML

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Greetings from Freeciv upstream
 

Hi Marko

On 14/02/11 09:39 PM, Marko Lindqvist wrote:
> Thanks for great info. If I understood it correctly, our bugfix-only
> release 2.2.5 a couple of days after Ubuntu feature freeze actually
> should qualify as freeze exception. But that would require that Debian
> packet to be synced from becomes available in a timely manner and
> introduces no new non-bugfix changes, and that someone requests sync.

Indeed. Feature-freeze does not apply to bug fix releases, so there
should still be enough time for 2.2.5.

-Jonathan

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Greetings from Freeciv upstream
 

Hi Marko

On 02/14/2011 03:46 PM, Marko Lindqvist wrote:

Dear Freeciv packagers

I write as one of the upstream Freeciv maintainers. As freeciv 2.3 release
comes closer, I think it's time to check that everything is fine in
packaging front also. If we at upstream can somehow improve our support
for your packaging effort, let me know. It's best interest of everyone
that end-user gets best possible freeciv.

We've added new README.packaging document to freeciv source tree that
hopefully makes your life easier and gives you tips how to make your
freeciv packaging even better.
Latest version of the document related to freeciv 2.3 can be seen in
http://svn.gna.org/viewcvs/*checkout*/freeciv/branches/S2_3/doc/README.packaging
For those who want to look further in to the future, version related to current
development version of freeciv (that will result in freeciv 2.4):
http://svn.gna.org/viewcvs/*checkout*/freeciv/trunk/doc/README.packaging
Please send me comments also about this document. What more should it cover?
Do you have any insight that might help other packagers?

I like that README. Gives a lot of good information. Good job.

As for the 2.3 schedule, we've already released beta3. Next release from S2_3
branch will be either beta4, or if things look good, RC1 in late March.
Before final 2.3.0 release there will be (at least) one more 2.2 bugfix
release. 2.2.5 will be released by the end of February.

Freeciv 2.3 will have no kind of gtk3 support. Current plan is to have
separate gtk2 and gtk3 clients available in 2.4. It's too early to tell which
one will be default one. No dates are yet set for 2.4 release, but it
seems that there will be about 1.5 years between 2.2.0 and 2.3.0 and
another 1.5 years from 2.3.0 would be Dec 2012.
In general I would be interested to hear about gtk3 migration policies
of different distributions.

This is what i have for Fedora 15:
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/Gnome3



This new need for gtk3 client means we have to cut effort in something
else. Unless some new face(s) take active role in Qt-client development,
it will be almost halted.

I also wonder if there should be discussion about freeciv release dates
between upstream and packagers. Sometimes it could make sense to make
freeciv release a bit earlier if that would mean meeting deadline for
release of some distribution. Currently we have no idea of such deadlines.
Could you inform me when at latest you need freeciv releases so you could
still get it in to next release of your distribution?


I have no problem at all to get the latest freeciv into our next
release. Be it in time, last minute or even after our release as update.
The latest freeciv will also be pushed (current policy still allows that
since it's no critpath component) to our N-1 release.


BTW, thanks for your good work!

--
Thomas Janssen
Fedora Linux Developer


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Greetings from Freeciv upstream
 

On 2/14/2011 9:46 AM, Marko Lindqvist wrote:
> This new need for gtk3 client means we have to cut effort in something
> else. Unless some new face(s) take active role in Qt-client development,
> it will be almost halted.

Speaking of clients, I wonder if you might weigh in on that subject in
this bug I came across today:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/freeciv/+bug/202327

It notes that while there are 3 different clients, the descriptions do
not really indicate what the difference is. Something should probably
be done to clear that up, so maybe you can suggest some wording?
Personally I always use the gtk client, but the description should
probably include reasons why you might want to use the others instead.
In particular, I'm not sure why you would want to use the SDL client.


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Greetings from Freeciv upstream
 

On 1 March 2011 22:10, Phillip Susi <psusi@cfl.rr.com> wrote:
> On 2/14/2011 9:46 AM, Marko Lindqvist wrote:
>> This new need for gtk3 client means we have to cut effort in something
>> else. Unless some new face(s) take active role in Qt-client development,
>> it will be almost halted.
>
> Speaking of clients, I wonder if you might weigh in on that subject in
> this bug I came across today:
>
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/freeciv/+bug/202327
>
> It notes that while there are 3 different clients, the descriptions do
> not really indicate what the difference is. *Something should probably
> be done to clear that up, so maybe you can suggest some wording?
> Personally I always use the gtk client, but the description should
> probably include reasons why you might want to use the others instead.
> In particular, I'm not sure why you would want to use the SDL client.

Difference between gtk- and sdl-clients in short: gtk is feature
complete, sdl looks better (it's often criticized that "gtk-client
looks like spreadsheet application, and not like a game")

Related discussion in our wiki:
http://freeciv.wikia.com/wiki/Win32_Native_vs_GTK2

Gtk-client is our primary client. This means that commit cannot be
accepted if it doesn't contain changes needed by gtk-client. So every
freeciv maintainer is responsible of keeping gtk-client updated.
Primary responsibility of other clients are on their own maintainers.
In practice everybody checks that commit wouldn't break compilation of
any of the maintained clients, but not much testing is done. There is
currently no active maintainer for sdl-client, so it's more like who
ever bothers to do something. Regardless, it's still priority high
enough that serious flaws in it can be considered release blockers.


- ML

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