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pinotree wrote:And if somebody wants packages for a distro which is not handled by the build service? This would be unfair for them, and for sure not something KDE would do.

And now it's very fair?
For openSuSE there are always built SVN-snapshots.
But for maybe Yoper or Dreamlinux there is not anything.
The build-service would enable new platforms. It would be fairer than now.
Of course you could say: it's fair, because there aren't any packages. And there aren't poor countries in the world, because everybody has no food, so there's no relative poverty...

TheBlackCat wrote:

pinotree wrote:The build service, as its name says, just builds, nothing more.

No, it builds a bunch of times, tests the build for basic errors, then uploads it to a server. It also automatically rebuilds packages when there is a change, including all packages that depended on that package.

... ie what I said: it just builds.

TheBlackCat wrote:

pinotree wrote:And if somebody wants packages for a distro which is not handled by the build service? This would be unfair for them, and for sure not something KDE would do.

The Linux foundation did. Are you saying they are being unfair?

And? Does the Linux Foundation provides the whole set of packages a GNU/Linux distro does?

TheBlackCat wrote:Packagekit currently does not support the package managements systems used by all distros. Is KDE being unfair by supporting it?

This comparison simply does not stand at all.
PackageKit is just a system to do some system task. It is not mandatory for normal KDE uses, and KDE would support a KDE fontend for it like it would with any other KDE software.

TheBlackCat wrote:

pinotree wrote:You are ignoring google01103's question, which is *not* the same of the counter-question you proposed. Everybody, either who compiles KDE from sources and also the distro packages, can test KDE compiles on their system.

Then they can test the built packages as well. My point is that KDE should offer the same level of support for the built packages as they do for the source tarballs. Nothing more, nothing less.

This is actually lot more than what KDE can (and should) do.

TheBlackCat wrote:And users should expect that. Lots of distros have totally unsupported but still official repositories.

Users should expect packages for new KDE releases from the same source they get any other package: from their distro.

TheBlackCat wrote:

pinotree wrote:The time and the resources needed for the actual build time of a package are just bits in the packaging process. What is there are steps like: writing the real packaging structure, making sure it is coherent, does not give conflicts with other distro stuff, keeping it updated, and so on.

Once the build structure is set, I was under the impression build service would handle any future changes.

No, the build system just *builds*. You have to keep the build system update, that's one of the more time-draining tasks when packaging.

TheBlackCat wrote:And of course it would conflict with the distro's own software, you wouldn't have both at the same time. A distro's own, say trunk version of KDE will conflict with its version of stable KDE as well. There is nothing surprising there.

This means also looking at what distros provide, and properly keep the build system update even keeping this in mind -> more work needed.

TheBlackCat wrote:

pinotree wrote:Packaging is lot more than a "5 minutes work, then feed the build service". It drags time, a lot of time and resources, which distros already spend to try to provide you working packages. You can imagine yourself: if the teams that package KDE on the various distro spend much time in provide packages, then the same would be needed when doing "vanilla" packages, no more and no less.

It would certainly be less, because as you said the distros also make a lot of distro-specific changes as well, spend a lot of time backporting things, and spend a lot of time integrating it with their software, none of which the KDE people would do. How much less I don't know, but it would certainly be less.

Sure, but KDE people spend already their time *providing* the software, which distros don't. And even if distros would not try to integrate KDE within themselves (which IMHO it is bad for users), it wouldn't be that time less.

TheBlackCat wrote:Based on my understanding of the build service, it might take a fair amount of work up-front to get everything set up, but once it is then it should be fairly automated.

... as long as it does not break because of upstream changes. That, as I said before, means more time spend in fixing packages instead of actually fixing software.

TheBlackCat wrote:

pinotree wrote:One of the bottom line is: if you think the KDE packages of your distro suck, then you either report them, change distro or compile KDE yourself.
But, working around "bad packages" like you would suggest for sure would not help distros at all.

I don't think they suck, but Aaron Seigo says over and over again how he thinks the distros' constant attempts to outdo each other by constantly pushing unstable and unfinished changes are hurting linux and hurting KDE particularly.

*This* is what I mean with "bad packages", and why you should complain to them if they provide bad packages.

TheBlackCat wrote:This was an attempted solution to his issue. This is not an attempt to help distros, it is an attempt to help users.

Most of users get their software with distros, so helping distros just helps users.

Your attempted "solution" is just a workaround to what distros could do "bad" at the moment; usually, workarounds reek, and sooner or later they badly break.

You think it would be to complicate to create some spec-files?
You say "it just builds". But what else should it do? When the build works it shouldn't do anything else. (Okay, it provides repos, too.)
There are two types of criticism:
Some sentences criticize the build-service. But there are no real arguments.
Some sentences criticize the idea to build packages. But why not? When there is a service which makes it quit simple to do it, then we could do it. Nobody prohibits the application-developer to provide their own packages, if they are a real advantage to the distro-provided ones.

The User wrote:

pinotree wrote:And if somebody wants packages for a distro which is not handled by the build service? This would be unfair for them, and for sure not something KDE would do.

And now it's very fair?
For openSuSE there are always built SVN-snapshots.

The current situation is quite fair indeed: we just provide sources, and no binary package of any kind.
If a distro packages SVN snapshots, that's still distro's responsability, not KDE's, and totally out of our control.

The User wrote:You think it would be to complicate to create some spec-files?
You say "it just builds". But what else should it do? When the build works it shouldn't do anything else. (Okay, it provides repos, too.)

The problem is not just "create some .spec files", but also "provide debian/ dirs", "write .ebuild files", "provide AUR packaging", and so forth.
And there is also "update the whole packaging when the installed stuff change", "update the dependencies according to the changes in the packages provided by some distro", etc.

The User wrote:Some sentences criticize the build-service. But there are no real arguments.

Nobody is criticizing the openSUSE build service at all.

The User wrote:Some sentences criticize the idea to build packages. But why not? When there is a service which makes it quit simple to do it, then we could do it.

"We" being who? You? The KDE developers? Who else?

The User wrote:Nobody prohibits the application-developer to provide their own packages, if they are a real advantage to the distro-provided ones.

Like nobody prohibits anyone to provide own KDE packages. Of course, I guess we can spot the difference between packaging a standalone application (let's say, KSnapshot) and the block of KDE modules (kdelibs, kdepimlibs, kdebase, etc), right?

"We" means the KDE-community.

KDE is something like "fair" because it provides nothing. But by using build-service the situation would become better. There would be still some distributions without the new packages. But for many people it would be an improvement. And seriously the build-service is much easier than building all packages on our PCs.

The User wrote:"We" means the KDE-community.

KDE is something like "fair" because it provides nothing. But by using build-service the situation would become better. There would be still some distributions without the new packages. But for many people it would be an improvement. And seriously the build-service is much easier than building all packages on our PCs.

I question the assumption that people seem to have that just feeding KDE into the build service would create a workable solution - but admit I don't know for sure and for this argument to have merit someone who actually has done this (an openSuse packager) would need to step forward and confirm or deny this.

If KDE'ers are using a distro that does not satisfy their KDE'ing needs than they should move to one that does or work within their community to affect changes.