Geometry Boost List: [ggl] A few more thoughts about infrastructure

Subject: [ggl] A few more thoughts about infrastructure
From: Mateusz Loskot (mateusz)
Date: 2010-02-25 15:25:04

Hi,

A bit of discussion developed on the Boost mailing list about
infrastructure support provided to projects/libraries, etc.
and I shared some comments and I got an interesting reply
from Vicente Botet.

It may be interesting in terms of our recent talks about Boost Geometry
infrastructure, where to place things like bug tracer, mailing list,
wiki, website and not to make the project scattered too much
as it would likely make thinks very confusing to users
and developers too.

Here is the reply from Vicente (included below):

http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lib.boost.devel/199975

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: [boost] review system in place is extremely slow? (was	Re:
[rfc] rcpp)
Date: Thu, 25 Feb 2010 17:16:39 +0100
From: vicente.botet <vicente.botet_at_[hidden]>
Reply-To: boost_at_[hidden]
To: <boost_at_[hidden]>
References: <904C9520E4A048EF98F1C5AA7BFD6A3C_at_viboes1>
<hm11jg$8ok$1_at_[hidden]>
<006301cab550$c9dee680$5d9cb380$@u-net.com>
<bc5bffe81002240910p686dda32maad4b78f85bfae15_at_[hidden]>
<d782df351002250110gcb4fea9u5e877add573a7fb3_at_[hidden]><4B868272.30706_at_[hidden]>
<4B869071.9080708_at_[hidden]>

----- Original Message -----
From: "Mateusz Loskot" <mateusz_at_[hidden]>
To: <boost_at_[hidden]>
Sent: Thursday, February 25, 2010 4:00 PM
Subject: Re: [boost] review system in place is extremely slow? (was Re:
[rfc] rcpp)

> Rene Rivera wrote:
>> Nevin Liber wrote:
>>> On 24 February 2010 11:10, Michael Fawcett 
>>> <michael.fawcett_at_[hidden]>wrote:
>>> 
>>>> Setting up the web backends for all of this sounds like a lot of 
>>>> work,
>>>> 
>>> 
>>> Given that we don't have enough volunteers to be review managers, 
>>> where exactly are you going to find the volunteers to do all this 
>>> setting up and maintaining web backends?
>> 
>> True.. But it's not a terrible amount of work with modern web tech, 
>> like Drupal. Along those lines I recently mentioned to Harmut how 
>> nice it would be to have each Boost library have their own sub-site 
>> (ex. spirit.boost.org). As it would promote the model that Boost is a
>>  set of independent libraries under one umbrella.
> 
> I was about to respond to Nevin's post with similar comment.
> As a brand new member of Boost developers community (thanks to Boost
> Geometry approval), I have got an impression that once a
> library accepted, it's unclear what would be a next step and how its
> development cycle would look like in terms of infrastructure support.
> 
> Given the Boost Geometry, we have had quite a long brainstorm and
> discussion with Barend and Bruno about how to organize the project
> as a part of Boost collection. Number of questions raised and
> I personally admit we have not found any ideal solution.
> 
> A few of the issues:
> 
> 1) Where Boost Geometry website should go? SourceForge, OSGeo Foundation
> (where it is now hosted, ), should we buy hosting as Spirit or perhaps
> arrange everything at boost.org. Where to put a regular website?
AFAIK, Boost don't provided a website by library, so you will need to
host where you prefer.

> Where to put a project specific Wiki or FAQ?

There is a wiki associated to the Trac system
(https://svn.boost.org/trac/boost/wiki). You can add you own page and
organize your wiki as you like. I suppose you will need to request to
have the right to modify it.

> 2) Where bug tracker goes?
> 
> Should we ask Boost Geometry users to submit reports to Boost Trac
> exclusively, or should we maintain it on our own. We have actually not
> decided what to do as neither of choices seem best options.
> Adding hundreds of reports to the general population at Boost Trac
> may make things difficult to maintain and searching for existing bugs
> may become a complex task (i.e. to confirm if a problem has been
> submitted before reporting new bug, etc.)

I would prefer you request your users to submit reports to Boost Trac.
This allow to check all the Boost tickets with only one tool.
You can add a specific query to show the trickets specific to the
component Geometry.

> 3) Where mailing lists go?
> The boost and boost-users seem a natural choice for Boost Geometry
> users, however plenty if not most of discussions would be
> boring to general audience of Boost developers/users.
> Geometry is one of wide variety of subjects Boost addresses.
>
> We likely need our own mailing list server, but where?
> lists.boost.org or somewhere else?
> How to avoid confusions in users so they know where to post their
> questions about Boost Geometry.
> 
> ATM, we host it at lists.osgeo.org

There are some specific mailing lists, e.g. Threads, Spirit, Doc, .. .
all that you need is to have a moderator I think. Have you request such
a ML?

> In general, there is no problem with finding virtual home for a project.
> The problem is that if it is outside Boost project, which in fact a
> library is a part of, then it will likely cause confusions and
> impression of disintegration.

I agree.

> The big question is how to avoid schizophrenic way of maintaining
> project infrastructure and a little split of personality
> as I observe in for instance with Boost/Adobe GIL.
> It is quite important to keep things well integrated, otherwise
> it may prevent wide adoption of a piece of software by users
> (it's well explained by Karl Vogel in http://producingoss.com/)

Maybe just doing what you are doing now. Requesting to this ML. IMO
things are not so static as people could think.

> I have experience with self-organised community of OSGeo Foundation
> (http://osgeo.org, http://wiki.osgeo.org) which could be compared to
> Boost as domain-specific (GIS/RS/geo*) community. OSGeo accepts
> projects by conducting incubation process similar to Boost reviews.
> Shortly, there is a bunch of projects projects living under the umbrella
> of OSGeo. Each project gets its own instance of:
> - overview website at project.osgeo.org or it is a subdomain which
> points to project own website.

Currently missing in Boost.

> - Trac/Wiki at trac.osgeo.org/project/

Available on request.

> - SVN: at svn.osgeo.org/project/

Already available.

> - mailing lists at lists.osgeo.org

Available on request.

> Some projects get other services like buildbot
> (http://buildbot.osgeo.org), FTP at download.osgeo.org, etc.

Currently missing in Boost.

> Everything works on volunteer basis, so it's a self-supported system.
> It is coordinated by volunteers willing to join SAC to support the
> community. (http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/SAC and
> http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/sac)
> 
> From a project point of view, it works nearly perfectly.
> However, I can admit it, it costs a lot of work to administer and
> maintain all the services. It is a load of work, indeed.
> 
> I've given the long story to share some observations and experiences
> in terms of brainstorming, however, I'm not sure what capabilities
> Boost holds in its hand in terms of server-side infrastructure.

Thanks to share with us all the questions about how to organize you project.

Best,
Vicente
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-- 
Mateusz Loskot, http://mateusz.loskot.net
Charter Member of OSGeo, http://osgeo.org