/srv/irclogs.ubuntu.com/2009/04/10/#launchpad-dev.txt

joeyso kfogel18:07
joeyI want to start using this channel!18:07
joey:-D18:07
kfogeljoey: I've been thinking about that, but I'm not sure how it's practical before open-sourcing.19:05
kfogelBut we can certainly have the meta-conversation in this channel!19:05
kfogelBasically, the internal company channel has a very wide topic spread -- lots of confidential stuff is said among the purely technical stuff.  And even most of the technical stuff is meaningless w/o access to the launchpad code.19:06
* joey nods.19:07
kfogelAny ideas?19:10
kfogelI think if we prod people to have their discussions over here right now, it'll last until the first time they need to talk about something non-public.19:10
kfogelwhen we get external developer, now that's when this channel starts becoming important.  I think the main thing is, post-open-sourcing, to require that people at least be logged in here & addressable during core hours.19:11
kfogelThen we'll set the channel topic to instruct outside contributors to ping a random name if they don't know anyone :-).19:12
kfogelHi, mat_t.19:13
joeykfogel, well I think it would force us to be more open if we could at least move topics of conversation here for those things which are already public.21:43
joeykfogel, it's not really easy to do in some cases since there is a lot of integration21:43
joeykfogel, I was hoping we'd make a big "do" about the stuff as it lands and encourage conversation about it here21:44
kfogeljoey: when we have some kind of critical mass.  Trouble is, we're kind of opening all at once, except for things like LAZR etc -- but those things wouldn't really be talked about here either, because they're independent projects.  Only when their use in the Launchpad code is the topic would talking about them here be the thing to do.21:46
joeykfogel, well that's an interesting statement21:48
kfogeldo expound...21:48
joeykfogel, we have opened csvcs for example... and then lazr and other things to come. It would be nice to have an irc home for them so folks could come, feel welcomed, and participate.21:48
kfogeljoey: now, API talk, *that* cuold happen here!21:48
joeyand API talk I suppose21:49
joeyalthough API's are probably a help question which is #launchpad21:49
joeykfogel, just so you know, I don't have any answers... I'm just thinking out loud :-)21:49
kfogeljoey: for example, with the lazr stuff, we made a deliberate decision not to put it in some kind of "launchpad.*" namespace.21:50
joeykfogel, right.21:50
joeykfogel, but without any sort of community wrapper around it, it's just there for show21:50
joeykfogel, how do we get a community around it?21:50
joeykfogel, my initial pondering is... can we not use #launchpad and #launchpad-dev?21:51
kfogelwe announce it in the right places, see who's using it, encourage its use where it would fit21:51
joeyI'd like for us to lead the community rather than someone from say Red Hat take it, fork it, and then have a big and active dev forum around it21:51
kfogelI guess I'm saying, community starts with people being motivated to use the code.  *Then* if they need an IRC channel, they'll create one, or come looking here.  But the lazr people are not necessarily the same audience as future launchpad contributors.21:51
kfogelThat's a good point... is there a danger of that happening?21:52
joeyI agree with the lazr vs LP stuff21:52
kfogelI mean, they're not going to fork unless it's worth forking, and if it's worth forking, we'll already see the community around it using it.21:52
joeyno more danger than anything else I suspect.21:52
kfogeljoey: you're at TLsprint in London right?21:52
joeynope. I'm home this week21:53
joeyI've been super busy with my temporary job to do the TL stuff21:53
joeywhich is why I'm only now thinking of this :-D21:53
joeyIf I was on LP full time I'd have already talked your ear off on all this stuff21:53
joeykfogel, In thinking about this more.... I think I'm sort of triggering off of attitudes21:54
joeylike....21:54
joeyI'd rather get people excited, use, and improve the software21:54
joeyvs just dump it over the fence for some show of good faith21:55
joeythe former of course requires some sort of manpower to do it21:55
joeyunless someone from the community (like wgrant or ScottK for example) decide it's something they want to help with21:55
kfogelWell, I think we're doing more than just dumping the stuff over the fence.  AFAIK, the lazr stuff is registered in Pypi, and we've been making noises about it in the appropriate places.21:55
kfogelAnd all these things are registered in launchpad, so there are binding surfaces for a community to attach to, if they're going to form.21:56
kfogele.g., mailing list, bug tracker, etc21:56
kfogel(though lp mailnig lists can be hard to find, sigh)21:56
joeyYeah, I concede you have a point there with the existing LP features21:57
kfogelCommunity won't form because we want it to form; it'll form because *it* wants to form.  It may just be that the number of people who find these packages useful is not large enough (yet?).21:57
joeySo I would have agreed with you there if it wasn't for cscvs21:57
kfogeljoey: oh?21:58
kfogeltell me more21:58
joeyso https://edge.launchpad.net/launchpad-cscvs21:58
joeysvn to bzr mirroring tool21:58
joeyit's been open for a few years now21:58
joeyafaik, nobody uses it21:59
joeyYou'd think someone might use it....21:59
joeybut perhaps not21:59
joeywe're still the only ones hacking on it21:59
kfogeloh, I know what it is... but aren't people using bzr-svn for that?21:59
kfogelI mean, how many sites have the kind of mirroring need we have?21:59
kfogelvery few, I think.21:59
joeyfor imports yes21:59
joeywe use cscvs for mirroring though22:00
kfogelthere are many people who want to use bzr client to talk to an svn repos, but that's totally different.22:00
joeye.g. an svn branch on sourceforge22:00
joeyMy only point though with cscvs is that I don't know how many people actually know it exists and that it is GPL22:00
* kfogel pokes around bazaar-vcs.org22:01
kfogelhttp://bazaar-vcs.org/?action=fullsearch&context=180&fullsearch=Text&value=cscvs&go=go22:01
joeyactually I think mbt uses it22:01
kfogeljoey: hit that url and weep22:01
joey:-)22:01
joey022:01
joeyso Karl it seems the only thing that we may want/need to do them is to ensure any of those projects that we turn loose have mailing lists22:03
joeyturned on22:03
joeyso that we give the community a chance to form.22:03
kfogelwe at least want to do that, good point22:03
kfogel(re cscvs: sigh, so let's look at this naming from an outsider's perspective:22:03
kfogela tool that mirrors svn to bzr, and it's called cscvs.  But actually, our version (which does bzr) is called "launchpad-cscvs", not even "bzr-cscvs", because we happened to use it for launchpad).22:04
joeyif you're looking for a new name for cscvs you could ask rockstar who is very intimate with the code although I don't know if he's on speaking terms with it :-)22:04
kfogelyeah how about "svn-bzr-mirror" or something really wild like that?22:04
kfogelI mean sheesh :-)22:05
kfogelso, one sec22:06
joeyhow about "cornpuffs"22:06
joey:-)22:06
kfogelhttps://wiki.canonical.com/OpenSource/Process mentions the mailing list thing now22:08
kfogel(people seem to actually be following that doc, so this might -- _might_ -- have an effect.)22:08
joeyyeah, that looks good22:09
joeydo we have an equivalent on the dev wiki for the community? maybe we don't need one22:10
kfogelthe division of information between the internal and the dev wiki is a little awkward right now22:15
kfogelunavoidably -- we have to either duplicate information, or have enigmatic references22:15
kfogeljoey: here's a question: why don't we create a mailnig list *automatically*?22:16
kfogelwhen you create a project, you get a bug tracker, and code hosting, and you don't have to do anything special...22:16
kfogeljoey: so, the cscvs home page recommends a mailing list already -- bazaar's!22:29
kfogeland presumably #bzr would be the IRC channel, therefore22:30
kfogelthough it doesn't say22:30
joeykfogel, It sure makes sense22:31
joeybut I think we didn't initially because we weren't sure how much the servers could handle22:31
joeymaybe we're passed that.22:31
joeybarry would be the guy to ask I guess22:31
kfogelI'll ask him22:32
joeykfogel, I think one of the issues is that besides kiko and myself, there hasn't been a whole lot of thought to community building.22:35
joeyhence you kfogel :-)22:35
kfogelyes :-)22:35
joeyI know a lot of people are interested in it...but we have other work to do22:36
kfogeljoey: the thing is, with the stuff we're releasing right now, it's not all one community -- it's spread across many communities, some of which already exist and have their own thing going on.  When we open source lp, then we really have to build a community ourselves.22:36
* joey nods in agreement.22:36
* joey goes on the offensive.....22:40
joeyScottK, wgrant - I have a special assignment for you. :-)22:40
joeyScottK, wgrant - Make noise on the launchpad-users list please about the need for an opensourcing party at OSCON :-)22:41
=== mpt_ is now known as mpt
wgrantjoey: I think the reason that nobody has touched cscvs is that the code is old and not very nice to look at and breaks frequently and we have bzr-svn already.23:58
wgrantI tried to have a look around at one point, but ran away fairly quickly.23:58

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