Il 17/01/2012 10:01, Alessandro Pasotti ha scritto:
after the latest discussions on this list and on the tracker the
plugin situations has never been so confused.
Agreed.
1.1 - Recently, I've read about having another plugin home page on
Redmine plugin subproject, what's the purpose of having another
plugins list on hub.qgis.org when we have the main repository on
plugins.qgis.org. Do we really want to duplicate all? How will the two
be kept in sync?
Right, please avoid duplication. We should make it easy to find the "right" page, and
remove (or hide) others.
2.3/2.4 - forcing authors to use the Redmine SCM and tracker
I strongly disagree: I don't think that having a single SCM code
repository for all plugins is a priority, I myself I'm not going to
use Redmine but will continue to host my plugins on github, will I be
banned from the repository for that? What we can do (and we do it
already) is to force authors to have *one* tracker and *one* code
repository and we can suggest them to create one on Redmine. Set aside
the freedom concerns, I understand that some plugins are over 10K LOC
and a new release per week, but some others are just a few lines (and
still very useful) and are not updated frequently, do their authors
really need to learn complicated procedures in order to share a
plugin? I even suspect that having a SCM should be mandatory, it
doesn't always make sense for smaller plugins.
I do not think anybody ever suggested to force anybody to do anything.
My opinion:
- we should have a standard path, fully automatic, to make life easy for plugin
writers
- if anybody wants to follow alternative routes, this must be possible
- an SCM is always good, as it makes easier to cooperate; we already have plugins
that need small fixes, and we'll have more in the near future, due to API breakage;
sometimes plugin writers are not very responsive, so others could quickly fix a
broken plugin (and it is far easier to fix them all once one knows which API is
broken than forcing many authors to learn how to do it)
- a bugtracker of some sort is a requirement: I think nobody wants to use software
without a proper bug tracking system
2.2/2.3 - autopackaging and other black magic
AN XML_RPC WEBSERVICE FOR THE UPLOAD OF NEW PLUGINS AND PLUGIN
VERSIONS IS ALREADY AVAILABLE
I personally think that every author will use its own Makefile/bash
script/python script/lua script/say your script/ to perform the
actions of bumping the version, packaging and uploading on the repo
(YES: BELIEVE ME: THIS CAN BE DONE NOW FROM A SCRIPT VIA XML_RPC
WEBSERVICE). What we can do is to add the few lines to call the upload
ws (examples are available and already posted on this list) to the
plugin creator plugin's makefile.
OK, this seems the best solution. As you imply, it is currently rather hidden for
authors.
In general, I think we should better document the whole process, that now looks far
more complicated than it is.
My conclusions
-----------------------
I think that Redmine is useful and can be used as the "suggested"
tracker and SCM system but we must allow authors to use an external
tracker or SCM if they like.
+1
Integration between the Django application and Redmine is advisable
for the optional creation of new subprojects (tracker and SCM) if the
plugin author wants.
+1
I don't think that autopackaging worths some work
because I believe that every author does its own way and because it's
so easy to write a script that manages this on the author's client
machine.
-1: remeber that what is very easy for one can be a stumbling block for others; for
several authors, writing a QGIS-py plugin is one of the first serious programming
tasks they encounter, so let's make their life easier.
Anyway, I think most of the issues (if not all) can be fixed with proper, clear, and
easy to find documentation of the whole process (a complete howto from scratch): any
volunteer?
PS: I don't like dictators (even the benevolent ones)
I think nobody likes them here (and this is one of the reasons why working on QGIS is
such a pleasure).
All the best, and thanks Alessandro for your work and commitment to the project.
--
Paolo Cavallini - Faunalia
www.faunalia.eu
Full contact details at www.faunalia.eu/pc
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