Re: [gentoo-dev] Guidelines for dangerous USE flags

2017-08-22 Thread Sven Vermeulen
On Tue, Aug 22, 2017 at 01:22:51PM -0400, Michael Orlitzky wrote:
> The net-analyzer/nrpe package has a ./configure flag:
> 
> --enable-command-args   allows clients to specify command arguments. ***
> THIS IS A SECURITY RISK! *** Read the SECURITY
> file before using this option!
> 
> Back in nrpe-2.x, it was available via USE=command-args, but I dropped
> it from nrpe-3.x, and a user just asked about it (bug 628596). There are
> at least two things we could do with a dangerous flag like that:
> 
>   1) require EXTRA_ECONF to enable it.
>   2) hide it behind a masked USE flag.
> 
> Both options require about the same amount of work from the user, namely
> editing something under /etc/portage. What do y'all think is the best
> way to proceed? Are there other examples in the tree I could follow?

I like the masked USE flag approach. Using EXTRA_ECONF requires a bit more
work from the user (not much though) but is less visible afterwards in my
opinion.

Perhaps a name that implies that there is a security risk could be
interesting, but that's a minor suggestion.

Is there a way we could somehow ensure that a USE flag is never set
globally, but only on a per-package basis?

Wkr,
Sven Vermeulen



Re: [gentoo-dev] rfc: /etc/hostname on gentoo

2016-08-22 Thread Sven Vermeulen
On Mon, Aug 22, 2016 at 01:28:50PM -0400, Michael Orlitzky wrote:
> On 08/22/2016 11:58 AM, William Hubbs wrote:
> > All,
> > 
> > it looks like app-emulation/docker expects /etc/hostname to exist.
> > 
> 
> Isn't there some kind of portable operating system standard that says
> how to do these things?

Yes, wouldn't the Docker project be happy to take on a patch that uses
gethostname() or so?

Wkr,
Sven Vermeulen



Re: [gentoo-dev] Dev retirement - Farewell message

2016-05-03 Thread Sven Vermeulen
On Sun, May 01, 2016 at 04:57:09PM +0200, José Fournier wrote:
> I have been a bit far from Gentoo for a rather long time now. I joined
> Gentoo in 2013 and I used to be a translator for the French language. At
> this time, I had to become a developer in order to be able to submit my
> work in the previous documentation system – but in reality I am not a
> developer at all.  Nowadays, with the new wiki – which I can see grow
> and improve day after day – it is no longer necessary for people like me
> become a developer.
> 
> At the beginning I could get a friendly and patient help from Sven
> Vermeulen who introduced me and was my mentor for a while. I am very
> grateful to him because it is not something obvious for someone who is
> not a computer scientist to enter a world like the Gentoo Community and
> Sven contributed a lot to make me feel at home.
> 
> Recently, I decided to join the Fedora community to help as a translator
> again. It a very different distribution and community but my previous
> experience at Gentoo is very valuable. Arriving in this new home, I told
> them all the good I think of the Gentoo distribution and of its people.
> If there is one distribution which made me progress substantially in my
> understanding of the Linux system, it is Gentoo, with no doubt.
> 
> Before leaving your community, I want to wish you all the best and thank
> you very much for your constant effort to make free and open source
> software available to everyone.
> 

Hi José,

Although it's sad to see you leave, I feel it's more like a mutation than a
farewell. I'm glad you continue to contribute to the open source/free
software community, and wish you all the best within the Fedora community.

With kind regards,

Sven Vermeulen
aka SwifT



Re: [gentoo-dev] [RFC/announcement] Reviewers project

2015-10-11 Thread Sven Vermeulen
On Sat, Oct 10, 2015 at 10:09:11AM +0200, Michał Górny wrote:
> I have the pleasure to announce that we have formed a new Reviewers
> team [1] for Gentoo. The team is going to assemble developers willing
> to perform ebuild reviews and help contributors improve their ebuild
> skills.
> 
> The main goal of the team is to handle GitHub pull requests. We are
> going to review incoming PRs, communicate with maintainers and merge
> them as appropriate. In particular, we're going to help willing
> contributors get high-quality, PGP-signed commits into Gentoo,
> therefore helping them prepare to become Gentoo developers.
> 
> The side goal is to review current Gentoo commits for major QA
> violations and other issues, aiming at improving the quality of ebuilds
> in Gentoo and helping other developers using bash, ebuilds and git
> effectively.
> 
> [1]:https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Project:Reviewers

This is good news. There are quite a few developers that manage a small
subset of packages while doing tremendous work for Gentoo within that
community. For instance, they focus on particular deliverables in
repositories which eventually get packaged, or on integration of certain
components which have a strong, broader community coverage.

These developers will certainly welcome any helping hand (even post-commit)
in keeping packages of high quality.

I hope you will also focus on the documentation side. Certain processes that
we follow within Gentoo (for commits, for instance the Git workflow) would
benefit from a good document *set* (yes, set, as you'll definitely want such
processes to have both a single-screen version as well as an elaborate
version).

I've also found myself often looking for similar ebuilds in which a certain
problem would already have been implemented. For instance, ebuilds with an
optional python part using the python-r1 eclass. Do you think it is
worthwhile to have a number of packages assigned as good examples?

Wkr,
Sven Vermeulen



Re: [gentoo-dev] Referencing bug reports in git (WAS: Re: [gentoo-commits] repo/gentoo:master commit in: sci-libs/opencascade/)

2015-08-09 Thread Sven Vermeulen
On Sun, Aug 09, 2015 at 04:43:36PM +0200, Dirkjan Ochtman wrote:
> > I think "X-Gentoo-Bug: 557022" also makes the job easier for tools that
> > parse commit messages.
> 
> I don't. Just the "bug " prefix should be fine for almost all
> purposes, even for tools.

I'm pretty sure the majority of developers don't care that one developer
uses "X-Gentoo-Bug" and another just adds it to the commit title.

I like /guidelines/ in the sense that, if I don't know something, I can look
it up. But don't make it mandatory until we start depending on it (for
instance, when we would automate stuff based on the content of the commit
message).

Wkr,
Sven Vermeulen



Re: [gentoo-dev] what's the correct format for bugs containing package name and version?

2015-03-06 Thread Sven Vermeulen
On Fri, Mar 06, 2015 at 06:55:13AM -0500, Rich Freeman wrote:
> Out of curiousity, what makes the changes necessary in the first
> place?  It seems like an incredible amount of effort is going into
> standardizing the format of textual summary lines and perhaps the
> simplest solution is to just not standardize them at all.

It doesn't hurt to have a recommendation, and personally I really appreciate
when people (yes, that includes developers and wranglers ;-) update the line
to be more informative. There already is a recommendation on the wiki, part
of the Bug Wranglers project [1].

[1] https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Project:Bug-wranglers

The difference between the segregation character (be it ': ', ' - ', ' : '
or what not) is for me less of a concern than the fact that it starts with
the category/package name+version (and with "<" in front if it has been
fixed with that version or higher). That is a real plus as I can easily see
how many fixes are in to a package, which ones to mark as FIXED when
stabilizing (I tend to use TEST-REQUEST as long as the package is still in
~arch), etc.

There are other resources on the wiki as well which might best be aligned
with whatever recommendation is used. See "Beautiful bug reports" [2] and
"Bugzilla HOWTO" [3] as examples.

[2] https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Beautiful_bug_reports
[3] https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Bugzilla_HOWTO

Wkr,
Sven Vermeulen



Re: [gentoo-dev] Removing 'selinux? ( sec-policy/selinux-*)' from DEPEND

2014-11-01 Thread Sven Vermeulen
On Sat, Nov 01, 2014 at 01:52:57PM +0100, Michał Górny wrote:
> > Michał Górny told me on IRC that I might be approaching this incorrectly (or
> > at least, inefficiently). I was working on the massive bug-spree (right now
> > stopped around 22% of the packages to investigate) so I'm temporarily
> > holding off until I'm certain.
> > 
> > The only change I want to instill on packages is to remove the USE="selinux"
> > specific dependency to a sec-policy/selinux-* package from the DEPEND
> > variable. So something like:
> > 
> >  DEPEND="
> > foo
> > -   bar
> > -   selinux? ( sec-policy/selinux-bez )"
> > +   bar"
> > 
> > If I am allowed to do this change without revbumping, I can just stop making
> > massive bug reports and do the change(s) myself...
> 
> You should have emphasized that the dependency will still be
> in RDEPEND. As I said with QA hat on, such a change is fine since it
> affects build-time dependencies only. People who installed the package
> already are not affected.

Thanks. I'll do the necessary updates tomorrow then (without revbump) and 
invalidate
the bug reports I already made.

Wkr,
Sven Vermeulen



Re: [gentoo-dev] Removing 'selinux? ( sec-policy/selinux-*)' from DEPEND

2014-11-01 Thread Sven Vermeulen
On Mon, Sep 01, 2014 at 11:26:49PM +0200, Tom Wijsman wrote:
> > [...]
> > 
> > With this change, we implement the same end result (correctly labeled
> > files after installation) while removing the need for the DEPEND
> > dependency. After all, this was not a build-time dependency but a
> > "merge-time" one, which we abused a bit to make things work.
> > 
> > With this change in place, we can now update the tree (at least, for
> > those packages that do not have other SELinux related dependency
> > requirements - those that link with libselinux still need it in
> > DEPEND of course) to remove the USE="selinux" conditional dependency
> > from DEPEND.
> > 
> > Given the discussion on dynamic dependencies and so, I am thinking
> > about doing this as follows:
> > 
> > 1. Create a tracker with separate bugs for every package where this
> > change can be made
> > 2. Give developers time to apply this (simple) change together with
> > whatever other changes they were planning.
> > 3. After 6 months or so, do the change myself (with revbump)
> > 
> > [...]
> > 
> > Is this a good approach to take?
> > 
> > [...]
> 
> 
> LGTM; we should avoid unnecessary bumps & rebuilds for trivial changes,
> especially when a USE flag based dependency line is removed from DEPEND.

Michał Górny told me on IRC that I might be approaching this incorrectly (or
at least, inefficiently). I was working on the massive bug-spree (right now
stopped around 22% of the packages to investigate) so I'm temporarily
holding off until I'm certain.

The only change I want to instill on packages is to remove the USE="selinux"
specific dependency to a sec-policy/selinux-* package from the DEPEND
variable. So something like:

 DEPEND="
foo
-   bar
-   selinux? ( sec-policy/selinux-bez )"
+   bar"

If I am allowed to do this change without revbumping, I can just stop making
massive bug reports and do the change(s) myself...

Someone? Pretty-please?

Wkr,
Sven Vermeulen





[gentoo-dev] Removing 'selinux? ( sec-policy/selinux-*)' from DEPEND

2014-08-29 Thread Sven Vermeulen
tldr; I want to remove USE="selinux" deps from DEPEND in
non-libselinux-linking packages in a sane manner and use a bug tracker with
6 months timeframe.

Hi all

In the past, to enable proper SELinux support in our tree, we had to have
the appropriate SELinux policy modules installed and loaded before the
package/application for which the policy was designed is merged to the
system. The reason is that otherwise the files installed on the system will
have the wrong labels assigned, making the applications unable to function
properly.

We implemented this by having the USE="selinux" triggered dependency in both
DEPEND (needed before merge) and RDEPEND (policy needs to be available
during runtime), like so:

DEPEND="selinux? ( sec-policy/selinux-somepolicy )"
RDEPEND="selinux? ( sec-policy/selinux-somepolicy )"

Recently, we updated the SELinux eclass so that after installation of a
policy package, the reverse dependencies of that package are looked up and
those reverse dependencies are relabeled (i.e. proper SELinux labels are
assigned to the files of that package).

With this change, we implement the same end result (correctly labeled files
after installation) while removing the need for the DEPEND dependency. After
all, this was not a build-time dependency but a "merge-time" one, which we
abused a bit to make things work.

With this change in place, we can now update the tree (at least, for those
packages that do not have other SELinux related dependency requirements -
those that link with libselinux still need it in DEPEND of course) to remove
the USE="selinux" conditional dependency from DEPEND.

Given the discussion on dynamic dependencies and so, I am thinking about
doing this as follows:

1. Create a tracker with separate bugs for every package where this change
   can be made
2. Give developers time to apply this (simple) change together with whatever
   other changes they were planning.
3. After 6 months or so, do the change myself (with revbump)

I don't think it is useful for end users that I do the change immediately as
this creates package bumps (and rebuilds) with no real benefit, and not
bumping is also not a good idea given the discussion on dynamic dependencies
in the past.

By providing a 6-months period, developers can put in this change when they
are bumping the package themselves (for functional and other reasons) and
the bugs (with tracker) allow developers to not forget this.

Is this a good approach to take?

Happy to hear your thoughts on this,

Sven Vermeulen



Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: don't rely on dynamic deps

2014-07-22 Thread Sven Vermeulen


On July 22, 2014 11:25:05 AM CEST, Pacho Ramos  wrote:
>El mar, 22-07-2014 a las 10:32 +0200, Kristian Fiskerstrand escribió:
>[...]
>> I find it somewhat curious that the difference between ~arch and
>> stable hasn't been brought up in this discussion yet. IMHO a user on
>> ~arch should expect a higher number of rebuilds, it _is_ after all
>> testing, whereby at the point it reaches stable, the deps are
>> hopefully more likely to be correct to begin with.
>> 
>> Does anyone have any insight into where these changes most often
>occur?
>> 
>
>Well, I have seen multiple times of this kind of fixes being noticed by
>people running really old stable boxes. They notice them when they
>update to latest stable and, then, we need to fix depends raising the
>versions usually :/
>
>Maybe this discussion should be focused on trying to think about how to
>standardize a way for distinguish between revision bumps needing full
>rebuild or only VDB updates :|

As someone who regularly adds in dependencies without bumping (adding 
USE=selinux dependencies to the proper SELinux policy) because that would 
trigger lots of totally unnecessary rebuilds: 

+1

Wkr,
  Sven
-- 
Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.



Re: [gentoo-dev] Multilib dependencies need to have >= on least version having EAPI=5 or multilib support

2014-06-19 Thread Sven Vermeulen
On Thu, Jun 19, 2014 at 12:13:12AM +0200, Michał Górny wrote:
> Hi, developers and users.
[...]

> Thank you for your cooperation. If you have any questions, please do
> not hesitate to ask.

Hi Michał

Thank you for your endless effort to get Gentoo to this stage (and further).

Wkr,
    Sven Vermeulen

PS I'm in a positive mood



Re: [gentoo-dev] Anyone with access to genkernel repository? Or should genkernel be p.masked on amd64 profiles?

2014-05-30 Thread Sven Vermeulen
On Fri, May 30, 2014 at 04:34:09PM +, hasufell wrote:
> Tom Wijsman:
> >
> > Please no p.mask for a single line being wrong...
> >
>
> That's nonsense. The amount of wrong lines doesn't matter. A single
> wrong line in the kernel can break your whole system as well.
>
> Please p.mask (or patch) immediately. There is no point in waiting.

I'd appreciate any patch on the Gentoo Handbook to use another tool for
initramfs. I have some experience with dracut, but the last dracut generated
initramfs failed on my system, whereas genkernel's still goes well.

The last Dracut generated initramfs also failed on SELinux systems, but that
isn't something that cannot be worked around...

Wkr,
Sven Vermeulen



Re: [gentoo-dev] RFC: Namespace for users created for packages

2014-03-26 Thread Sven Vermeulen
On Wed, Mar 26, 2014 at 02:32:58PM +0100, Michal Hrusecky wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> interesting discussion started in openSUSE mailing list[1][2] and I would like
> to open up the same question on this mailing list.
> 
> Basically it is about the following problem. Citing parts of proposal:
> 
> Many packages need to add user and group names for their unprivileged daemons.
> Many names are short for convenience, e.g. 'pop', 'vdr', 'tor' or 'znc'. Since
> there is no separate name space for system users those names may collide with
> names of real persons. Sharing a user name between a system user and a normal
> user leads to surprising or even security relevant misbehavior as the daemon
> user may write to files in the real user's home or vice versa.
> 
> Conclusion, in short, is to prefix system users (with some exceptions like 
> root
> or nobody) with underscore '_'. So you would get users like '_pop', '_vdr',
> '_tor' or '_znc'. OpenBSD already does that[3]. openSUSE proposal with more
> details can be seen on GitHub[4].
> 
> So the question is, what would you think about such a policy in Gentoo?

I'm in favor. It shouldn't be used as *the* check to make sure that an
account is a functional (non-interactive/daemon) account (for that there is
also the user id range and so on) but for visibility it's definitely worth
persuing.

Wkr,
Sven Vermeulen



[gentoo-dev] New package "eid-viewer", is app-misc ok?

2014-03-08 Thread Sven Vermeulen
Hi all

I'm going to add eid-viewer, which is software to view the contents of a
Belgian eID card (such as the person's picture, address details or
certificte information), to the Portage tree.

I think the most proper category is "app-misc", but considering this is
already a quite "full" category I'm open to suggestions what a better one
would be (if any).

There is a related package, called app-crypt/eid-mw, already in the tree
under the app-crypt category as it is middleware for interacting with the
card. However, unlike the middleware, the viewer doesn't seem to perform
anything cryptographic-related.

So - is app-misc ok?

Wkr,
Sven Vermeulen



Re: [gentoo-dev] Recommend cronie instead of vixie-cron in handbook?

2013-12-11 Thread Sven Vermeulen
On Tue, Dec 10, 2013 at 09:55:05PM +0100, Pacho Ramos wrote:
> https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=197625#c14
> 
> This has reminded me that maybe we should switch to cronie from
> vixie-cron as default and recommended cron provider in Handbook. Last
> time I checked, vixie-cron upstream was died while cronie forked it
> fixing some bugs :/
> 
> What do you think?

I'm ok with it. At least cronie's main website is quick to find, and I
remember a bug I sent in to the cronie maintainers and got a fast reply, so
positive experience as well.

Wkr,
Sven Vermeulen



Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: [gentoo-dev-announce] OpenRc-0.12 is coming soon

2013-08-03 Thread Sven Vermeulen
On Sat, Aug 03, 2013 at 04:44:52PM +, Duncan wrote:
> I run openrc- because I guess my configuration's unusual enough to 
> trigger bugs once in awhile, and from experience once I do, it's a lot 
> easier to track 'em down if I've only a couple commits to check since my 
> last update.  Plus the fact that I can (and religiously do) run the 
> unpack to trigger a git pull, then run git whatchanged, BEFORE doing the 
> actual update.  So if there's a problem, I either spot it right away 
> before I actually build and install the update, or at minimum, I have a 
> very good idea where it is once I hit it, because I have a good idea what 
> changed and why.

Care to elaborate a small bit on this? Is this a hook through bashrc that
you use? I'm running a few - myself (not openrc though) and am
interested in doing something similar...

Wkr,
Sven Vermeulen



Re: [gentoo-dev] [1/3] Automatic *XML->Wiki wiki.gentoo.org

2013-07-10 Thread Sven Vermeulen


Alex Legler  wrote:
>- Developer list: Moves to the sidebar. Not sure how to render that.
>Maybe in a comment and people remove that once they have added all the
>members?

Oh so the developer list and subproject list will be generated by mediawiki? 
Cool. I can just drop that (at the time of conversion the project sites 
themselves are still available to consult).

I'll update the stylesheet with the suggested style improvements this evening.

Wkr,
  Sven Vermeulen
-- 
Sent from my Android phone with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.



Re: [gentoo-dev] [1/3] Automatic *XML->Wiki wiki.gentoo.org

2013-07-08 Thread Sven Vermeulen
On Wed, Jun 26, 2013 at 03:54:47PM +0200, Alex Legler wrote:
> >> I've committed my draft XSL to the gentoo/xml/htdocs/xsl location, named
> >> guidexml2wiki.xsl. It still requires some updates that I'll work on soon
> >> (such as handling internal links) as I'll be using it more and more for the
> >> guides on gentoo.org/doc/en to move to the wiki as well.
> >> ProjectXML generates towards GuideXML, so should be usable chained.
> > It would be nice to move the foundation/ content to the Wiki as well I
> > think.

I did some additional work on the style (as well as making a small wrapper
script to simplify handling it). There are still some issues that I need to
sort out, but I hope I can do that the coming days.

I keep track of the stuff at [1], an example output can already be found at
[2]. 

[1] https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/User:SwifT/proj2wiki 
[2] https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/User:SwifT/proj2wiki/test

It would appreciate some feedback - things that do not need to be covered
anymore or so (I know our wiki supports some stuff that shouldn't be
rendered anymore).

No promises, but everything I know can help ;)

btw, the tool actually converts GuideXML, so I'll be updating it later on to
support better moves of our documentation as well.

Wkr,
Sven Vermeulen



Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Gentoo Hangouts

2013-06-24 Thread Sven Vermeulen
On Mon, Jun 24, 2013 at 12:04:04PM +0100, Markos Chandras wrote:
> I like the idea. It might help bring developers and users closer.

Me too, if I can ever contribute to it, or help users with their Gentoo
(Hardened/SELinux/IMA/EVM/...) through it, I'll be happy to work with it.

Wkr,
  Sven Vermeulen



Re: [gentoo-dev] RFC: Moving project pages to wiki.gentoo.org

2013-06-13 Thread Sven Vermeulen
On Tue, Jun 11, 2013 at 02:15:29PM +0200, Alex Legler wrote:
> On 11.06.2013 13:05, Theo Chatzimichos wrote:
> > On Tuesday, June 11, 2013 12:20:20 Sven Vermeulen wrote:
> >> "Jason A. Donenfeld"  wrote:
> >>> On Sun, Jun 9, 2013 at 4:22 PM, Alex Legler  wrote:
> >>>> - Projects: Use a GuideXML-to-Wikisyntax conversion tool to create an
> >>>>
> >>>>   initial wiki version of the document
> >>>
> >>> What is the current status of such a tool?
> >>
> >> It is a script (xslt) that can be used with xsltproc to convert large 
> >> chunks
> >> into wiki style. It isn't perfect though thus still requires manual review,
> >> but it is doable.
> >>
> >> I *think* I committed one to the repo a while ago. If not, I'll do so soon
> >> (I have one in my own repo just for this purpose).
> > 
> > How about an ebuild please?
> > 
> 
> Optional. I intend to expose this as a web site/service.

I've committed my draft XSL to the gentoo/xml/htdocs/xsl location, named
guidexml2wiki.xsl. It still requires some updates that I'll work on soon
(such as handling internal links) as I'll be using it more and more for the
guides on gentoo.org/doc/en to move to the wiki as well.

ProjectXML generates towards GuideXML, so should be usable chained.

But as mentioned, it's a draft, and if you don't like it I don't mind at all
;-)

Wkr,
Sven Vermeulen

PS An ebuild for a single stylesheet seems like overkill to me, but i've
been proven incorrect in the past...



Re: [gentoo-dev] RFC: Moving project pages to wiki.gentoo.org

2013-06-11 Thread Sven Vermeulen


"Jason A. Donenfeld"  wrote:

>On Sun, Jun 9, 2013 at 4:22 PM, Alex Legler  wrote:
>> - Projects: Use a GuideXML-to-Wikisyntax conversion tool to create an
>>   initial wiki version of the document
>
>
>What is the current status of such a tool?

It is a script (xslt) that can be used with xsltproc to convert large chunks 
into wiki style. It isn't perfect though thus still requires manual review, but 
it is doable.

I *think* I committed one to the repo a while ago. If not, I'll do so soon (I 
have one in my own repo just for this purpose).

-- 
Sent from my Android phone with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.



Re: [gentoo-dev] extending metadata.xml to support CPE information

2013-05-09 Thread Sven Vermeulen
On Wed, May 08, 2013 at 09:06:00PM -0400, Mike Frysinger wrote:
> On Wednesday 08 May 2013 21:01:19 Mike Frysinger wrote:
> > On Tuesday 07 May 2013 23:59:18 Mike Frysinger wrote:
> > > we've already got a database for maintaining this sort of thing on a per-
> > > package basis: metadata.xml.  so let's extend the DTD to cover this.  the
> > > existing remote-id field looks like a pretty good fit, so the proposal is
> > > simple: add a new "cpe" type.
> > 
> > committed:
> 
> or not.  someone on cc want to commit that change for me ? :)
> 
> just add "cpe" between "cpan-module" and "cran" in the remote-id field.

Done

Wkr,
Sven Vermeulen



Re: [gentoo-dev] extending metadata.xml to support CPE information

2013-05-07 Thread Sven Vermeulen
On Tue, May 07, 2013 at 11:59:18PM -0400, Mike Frysinger wrote:
> the guys who maintain the security CVE project [1] [2] (designed to be the 
> authority when it comes to indexing security related vulnerabilities in 
> projects) have a CPE specification [3] to make tracking CVEs back to a 
> canonical source in a machine parseable format.
> 
> the ChromiumOS project wants to be able to tie CPEs to a specific package.  
> this would probably also be a good thing for our own security team to tie 
> into 
> the GLSA process.  the Debian project too is extending their database to 
> include CPE information [4].
> 
> we've already got a database for maintaining this sort of thing on a per-
> package basis: metadata.xml.  so let's extend the DTD to cover this.  the 
> existing remote-id field looks like a pretty good fit, so the proposal is 
> simple: add a new "cpe" type.  the entries for net-misc/curl would be:
> 
>  cpe:/a:curl:curl
>  cpe:/a:curl:libcurl
> 
> 
> or the gzip package:
> 
>  cpe:/a:gnu:gzip
> 
> 
> for most packages, there will probably be only one cpe entry, but as you can 
> see here, sometimes more than one can track back to a single package.
> 
> we have some scripts running on the CrOS side to try and do an initial seed 
> (at least, for all the packages we're using), so i'll probably take care of 
> merging that into the main tree.  i'm not proposing this be required or 
> anything (since not all packages will have one).

I'm all for it. We can then easily map CVEs against packages, especially if
the version structure we use in the ebuilds is the same one as used upstream
(so the remainder of the CPE with version can be easily obtained).

http://blog.siphos.be/2013/04/matching-packages-with-cves/

Wkr,
Sven Vermeulen



Re: [gentoo-dev] alsaconf removal?

2013-04-11 Thread Sven Vermeulen
On Thu, Apr 11, 2013 at 10:10:45AM +0300, Samuli Suominen wrote:
> alsaconf should die as it's useful only for ISA/PCMCIA and currently broken
> 
> see, http://bugs.gentoo.org/456214
> 
> does anyone have problems with dropping alsaconf and patching the 
> gentoo's alsa-guide.xml to tell users to edit /etc/modprobe.d/alsa 
> directly if they need?
> udev will autoload the modules just fine even without touching the whole 
> file for PCI, USB, ... devices

Fine by me. 



Re: [gentoo-dev] DNSSEC (w/ DLV) live on *.dev.gentoo.org

2013-01-08 Thread Sven Vermeulen
On Sun, Jan 06, 2013 at 10:01:00PM -0600, Doug Goldstein wrote:
> On Sun, Jan 6, 2013 at 7:31 PM, Robin H. Johnson  wrote:
> > Just a heads up,
> >
> > DNSSEC is now live on *.dev.gentoo.org hosts.
> 
> So for those that had to look up some or all of what Robin mentioned,
> I'll summarize below.

Feels like I'm on reddit now...

Upvote for you for the explanation, and an upvote to Robin for implementing it 
for
us!

Wkr,
Sven Vermeulen



Re: [gentoo-dev] Using emerge-webrsync to simplify the handbook

2012-12-09 Thread Sven Vermeulen
On Sat, Dec 08, 2012 at 08:10:32PM -0500, Rich Freeman wrote:
> Uh, does emerge-webrsync have some kind of automagical detection of
> the fact that you're building a chroot?  I would think that it would
> sync /usr/portage, and not /mnt/gentoo/usr/portage.  Perhaps you
> should move that down into the chroot section, and mkdir /usr/portage
> if that is needed?

Crap. Indeed, section moved towards the place where we optionally recommend
"emerge --sync", and put in an mkdir /usr/portage.

Wkr,
Sven Vermeulen



Re: [gentoo-dev] Using emerge-webrsync to simplify the handbook

2012-12-08 Thread Sven Vermeulen
On Fri, Nov 30, 2012 at 10:44:31AM -0500, Richard Yao wrote:
> On 11/30/2012 06:46 AM, Sven Vermeulen wrote:
> > On Nov 29, 2012 10:24 AM, "Markos Chandras"  wrote:
> > > > We could slightly simplify the handbook installation procedure if we
> > > > told people to use emerge-webrsync to fetch the initial snapshot. What
> > > > do people think?
> > >
> > > Seems a good improvement to me.
> > 
> > I'm ok with it as well. I'll draft up something. I suspect emerge-webrsync
> > is available on all platforms?
> 
> It is part of sys-apps/portage.

Okay, I've updated the instructions.

First, I removed the references to the stage3 snapshots on the "Universal
CD" as I don't think we have a (recent enough) Universal CD, and we would
recommend the stage3 files from our mirrors anyway.

Second, the Portage tree snapshots are now installed through emerge-webrsync
(which means the entire section on downloading the tarballs, checking
integrity, extracting is now a single paragraph).

Finally, the section on updating the Portage tree (using emerge --sync) is
now marked as optional, with the remark that if you're behind a firewall you
can safely ignore this section as the user will already have a quite
up-to-date tree installed.

I don't know if we should remove the section altogether (about emerge
--sync) or not. It is a small step and users *will* create bug reports about
it if they don't notice it in the documentation anymore. Marking it optional
seems to be a good approach here.

Wkr,
Sven Vermeulen

PS Commit was made a few minutes ago, so please give it an hour before it
shows up on the site.



Re: [gentoo-dev] Using emerge-webrsync to simplify the handbook

2012-11-30 Thread Sven Vermeulen
On Nov 29, 2012 10:24 AM, "Markos Chandras"  wrote:
> > We could slightly simplify the handbook installation procedure if we
> > told people to use emerge-webrsync to fetch the initial snapshot. What
> > do people think?
> >
>
> Seems a good improvement to me.

I'm ok with it as well. I'll draft up something. I suspect emerge-webrsync
is available on all platforms?


Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: news item: changes to stages (make.conf and make.profile)

2012-07-25 Thread Sven Vermeulen
On Tue, Jul 24, 2012 at 01:15:43PM -0400, Michael Orlitzky wrote:
> I think a news item is reasonable here (in addition to the above). Most
> users don't know about the move from /etc/make.conf to
> /etc/portage/make.conf. After this change, there will be a
> gradually-increasing need to know that a switch took place.
> 
>  1) To a first approximation, nobody reads the documentation.

There sure are a lot of nobody's then...

Wkr,
Sven Vermeulen



[gentoo-dev] Re: news item: changes to stages (make.conf and make.profile)

2012-07-24 Thread Sven Vermeulen
On Tue, Jul 24, 2012 at 12:07:59AM +, Jorge Manuel B. S. Vicetto wrote:
> I've talked with both the PR and Docs team before about this change.
> I'll try to help the docs team updating the handbook.

Speaking of which, will this also start the use of the SHA512 & WHIRLPOOL
checksums? We've had a bug open for it for a while (bug #386475) but the
digests still don't show this. If it is simultaneously, we'll need to fix
that as well.

Can current users also already use the /etc/portage location? If so, I can
already update the docs now (since I'll need to describe both of the
locations for a while anyhow).

Wkr,
Sven Vermeulen



Re: [gentoo-dev] Looking for a (temporary) proxy docdev for french documentation

2012-07-12 Thread Sven Vermeulen
On Thu, Jul 12, 2012 at 06:22:31PM +0200, Xavier Miller wrote:
> The french documentation is quite outdated, and this is not a good 
> "vitrine" to Gentoo for the French-speaking users.
> By this outdated documentation, we get, in the french subforum and 
> #gentoofr IRC channel, many outdated questions about HAL, baselayout 1, 
> or CHOST changes...
> 
> I had contact with cam, who said there is nobody now in the FR doc team.
> 
> In the other side, there are some volunteers who can help to update the 
> official documentation.
> 
> We need thus an /ad interim/ proxy docdev to help us to merge the 
> patches for the documentation.
> Meanwhile, I could follow the procedure to become a docdev.

Hi Xavier,

You might want to take this to the gentoo-doc mailinglist. That being said,
I don't mind proxying commits for you guys. I'll contact you offlist for the
details.

Wkr,
Sven Vermeulen



[gentoo-dev] Last rites: some sec-policy/selinux-* packages

2012-05-13 Thread Sven Vermeulen
In the past, some SELinux policy packages provided SELinux modules whose
name didn't reflect the package name. For instance, selinux-gnupg provided
the "gpg" SELinux module.

A year or so ago, our SELinux module packages got a standard naming
convention so that selinux- provides the  SELinux module.
Or, in the example above, "selinux-gpg" provides "gpg".

The ebuilds that had a "wrong" name got updated to DEPEND on the new package
(so they act as some sort of wrapper) so that we didn't have to introduce
package renaming. I've now also removed all dependencies on these wrapper
packages and will remove them from the tree in about 30 days.

The packages are:
selinux-acpi
selinux-audio-entropyd
selinux-bluez
selinux-cyrus-sasl
selinux-desktop
selinux-ftpd
selinux-ipsec-tools
selinux-jabber-server
selinux-nfs
selinux-oidentd
selinux-snmpd
selinux-tftpd
selinux-ucspi-tcp
selinux-courier-imap
selinux-gnupg
selinux-haveged
selinux-openldap

Wkr,
Sven Vermeulen



[gentoo-dev] Cleanup of @link attribute in guides

2012-04-05 Thread Sven Vermeulen
Hi guys,

Unless I'm notified why I shouldn't, I'll be removing the @link attributes
from all guides under gentoo/xml/htdocs from the  tags. This
attribute was used in the past for improving linking across documents, but
the underlying functions have all been removed for quite some time now and I
rather clean up the DTD a bit.

I'm aiming for Tuesday April 10th (or later) to give the smarter guys and
girls here ample time to tell me to stop touching their files and do some
real work instead. 

Once the link has been removed from the documents, I'll also remove it from
the DTD so that new commits won't bring it in again.

Yours faithfully,
your local doc monkey


Sven Vermeulen

PS Sending to gentoo-dev because it also includes changes on the
   xml/htdocs/proj/* documents.



Re: [gentoo-dev] Happy 10th birthday (in advance)

2012-03-31 Thread Sven Vermeulen
On Sat, Mar 31, 2012 at 08:56:22AM +0100, Ciaran McCreesh wrote:
> Do you really want to be advertising an awful hack that doesn't really
> work, is conceptually unsound and that breaks all kinds of things in
> subtle ways?

Isn't that something all major distributions do? ;-)

Sven




Re: [gentoo-dev] About suggesting to create a separate partition for portage tree in handbook

2012-03-31 Thread Sven Vermeulen
On Fri, Mar 30, 2012 at 10:06:18AM +0200, Pacho Ramos wrote:
> Looks then that there are several alternatives for portage tree, then,
> maybe the option would be to add a note to Gentoo Handbook explaining
> the cons of having portage tree on a standard partition and, then, put a
> link to a wiki page (for example) where all this alternatives are
> explained.
> 
> What do you think about this approach? 

I don't like the "cons" approach, as it gives the impression that users are
pushed into a negative solution, whereas the current situation works just
fine for almost all users. The approach for a different partition is for
performance reasons (which most users don't have any negative feelings
about) and as such might be read as a "ricer" approach.

But perhaps it would be more "lean" to just start with a wiki page (or
document) for alternative / better partitioning layouts, and when that has
stabilized then we can talk about Handbook integration, not?

Wkr,
Sven Vermeulen



Re: [gentoo-dev] About suggesting to create a separate partition for portage tree in handbook

2012-03-27 Thread Sven Vermeulen
On Tue, Mar 27, 2012 at 02:29:34PM -0500, William Hubbs wrote:
> Why not just the separate "quick install" guide like we have that lists
> steps and the handbook if yu want more details?

We came from that. It means we need to start managing "just the commands"
for each architecture. After a while, people start asking more information
for "just the necessary bits", making the guides longer and longer, after
which they'll eventually need to be made multi-page.

Wkr,
Sven Vermeulen



Re: [gentoo-dev] About suggesting to create a separate partition for portage tree in handbook

2012-03-27 Thread Sven Vermeulen
On Tue, Mar 27, 2012 at 02:47:15PM -0400, Rich Freeman wrote:
> On Tue, Mar 27, 2012 at 2:34 PM, Alexandre Rostovtsev 
> > 1. ext4, not ext3, needs to be recommended as the default filesystem. We
> > have kernel 3.2 marked stable, there is no need to keep talking about
> > ext4 as if it's something experimental.
> 
> I tend to agree here.  Not sure we need the full discussion of
> filesystems either.  Ext4 is probably good enough for everybody, and
> mention ext3/2 as more established alternatives.

I see no issue putting ext4 as the suggested file system. However, it must
be checked on a per-architecture basis (I can only test x86 and amd64 myself
- I know, I'm missing all the fun) and preferably brought on by the
responsible teams of those architectures.

Dropping the (elaborate) explanation on file systems won't win us much. It's
not like it is that long - a paragraph per file system type. Even the online
help in recent distribution installations provide more information.

> I tend to feel the same way about stuff like LILO.

I would *really* like to drop LILO and while we are at it, get grub2 working
on all systems/architectures and stable ;-) But I'm not going to drop LILO
without group consent.

> Then again, Gentoo is about choice.  It just seems like we're
> presenting users with more choices than makes sense for a newbie.  If
> there is a choice between something that 99.99% of users will want,
> and some ancient piece of cruft that still works and is better for
> 0.01% of the userbase, does that really have to be in the handbook?

Welcome to documentation development. The Gentoo Handbook has always been a
difficult source for such discussions. If we truely want to provide
information towards our users on all possible choices, you'll need a totally
different approach.

I once started (before I left Gentoo, rejoined, left again) on a "complete
gentoo handbook" that covered much more in greater detail (you'll find the
last version at
http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/draft/complete/handbook.xml) but I've
since moved away from that. Perhaps I should work again on it...

Wkr,
Sven Vermeulen



Re: [gentoo-dev] About suggesting to create a separate partition for portage tree in handbook

2012-03-27 Thread Sven Vermeulen
On Tue, Mar 27, 2012 at 07:49:00PM +0200, Pacho Ramos wrote:
> I am a bit surprised handbook still doesn't suggest people to create a
> separate partition for /usr/portage tree. I remember my first Gentoo
> systems had it inside / and that lead to a lot of fragmentation, much
> slower "emerge -pvuDN world" (I benchmarked it when I changed my
> partitioning scheme to put /usr/portage) separate and a lot of disk
> space lost (I remember portage tree reached around 3 GB of disk space
> while I am now running with 300MB)
> 
> Could handbook suggest people to put /usr/portage on a different
> partition then? The only doubt I have is what filesystem would be better
> for it, in my case I am using reiserfs with tail enabled, but maybe you
> have other different setups.

To be honest, I don't think it is wise to describe it in the Gentoo Handbook
just yet. I don't mind having it documented elsewhere, but the separate
partition is not mandatory for getting Gentoo up and running. The
instructions currently also just give an example partition layout and tell
users that different layouts are perfectly possible.

We need to take into consideration what is needed (must) for a Gentoo
installation, what is seriously recommended (should), what is nice to have
(could), etc. And for me, having a separate /usr/portage is a nice-to-have
imo.

Wkr,
Sven Vermeulen



Re: [gentoo-dev] www-servers herd is empty

2012-03-22 Thread Sven Vermeulen
On Wed, Mar 21, 2012 at 09:22:19AM +0100, Dirkjan Ochtman wrote:
> > Then, the way to go would be to move them to maintainer-needed and let
> > people pick whatever they want. I agree and can do it myself just now if
> > you let me do
> 
> Seems sensible.

I also dont mind helping out here, I use nginx, privoxy, squid and apache on
a daily basis (albeit not to their full potential).

Wkr,
Sven Vermeulen



Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: newsitem: unmasking udev-181

2012-03-12 Thread Sven Vermeulen
On Sun, Mar 11, 2012 at 12:49:11AM -0600, Ryan Hill wrote:
> We should really have some documentation on how to create a minimal initramfs
> that mounts /usr (if we don't already, I haven't looked).  I've never needed
> one until now and don't have the foggiest idea how it's done.  I can't be the
> only one.

I just started the tracker [1] for the documentation changes and sent info
to gentoo-doc mailinglist about it. The upcoming days, I'll have the needed
updates trickle into the documents.

[1] https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=407959

> Also, the handbook still endorses having a separate partition for /usr and
> includes it in the example setup.  This should be changed now, not when
> stabilization time comes.  

It's an example, and we still endorse it. Only will we now tell users to use
an initramfs with it.

Wkr,
Sven Vermeulen



Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Can we get PIE on all SUID binaries by default, por favor?

2012-01-23 Thread Sven Vermeulen
On Mon, Jan 23, 2012 at 03:00:41PM -0500, Mike Gilbert wrote:
> I'm asking "how does one enable PIE/ASLR", not how to check if it is
> enabled already.

Look at http://hardened.gentoo.org, the default toolchain used includes PIE,
and it also includes various other measures (like additional grSecurity
restrictions or even SELinux) that makes Gentoo Hardened systems less
vulnerable to this specific vulnerability.

Wkr,
    Sven Vermeulen



Re: [gentoo-dev] rfc: locations of binaries and separate /usr

2012-01-05 Thread Sven Vermeulen
On Thu, Jan 05, 2012 at 08:08:44PM +, Ciaran McCreesh wrote:
> > > Or will /etc move to /usr too?
> > 
> > No, /etc isn't going anywhere.
> 
> Are you sure? I heard a rumour that systemd will soon require you to
> put /etc inside your initrd (since / can't be mounted without it).
> Obviously, you'd have to reboot if you made any changes to your config
> files, but that's OK since you can't safely restart daemons anyway.

They've thought of that, and will make 
- kexec mandatory so that reboots are not needed for those times you
  need to switch kernels
- make hibernation mandatory for the other times




Re: [gentoo-dev] rfc: locations of binaries and separate /usr

2012-01-03 Thread Sven Vermeulen
On Sun, Jan 01, 2012 at 03:21:47PM -0500, Olivier Crête wrote:
> > I use a separate /usr with LVM on all my systems. My root partition uses
> > RAID1. And I never had the need for an initramfs of any kind. Also, there
> > are some major hurdles to take when it comes to getting an initramfs working
> > with SELinux. Most initramfs implementations I saw are not SELinux aware, so
> > all changes they make to the system either result in failures when they try,
> > or failures when the root-switch occurs.
> 
> dracut fully supports SELinux (it's used in Fedora which has this
> SELinux horror on by default).

Yes... but no.

Fedora uses SELinux but using a policy where most domains run unconfined
(meaning they're allowed to do almost anything) and mostly the
network-facing services are confined. 

I just got dracut working on a SELinux system here (took me a few hours to
compile a SELinux domain for dracut, because the application doesn't work
with the standard privileges of an administrator) and it boots up (up to
and including "dracut: Switching root") until SELinux is activated. 

>From that point onwards, it's dead since its using wrong labels and wrong
context.

It is SELinux-aware (it mounts the selinuxfs and such) but I think I'll need
to edit the /usr/lib/dracut/* stuff to get it to boot up properly on a
SELinux system that doesn't use unconfined domains...

I'll try to get it working the next few days. Once (or when) it does, I'll
submit the necessary patches to wherever is necessary.

Wkr,
Sven Vermeulen




Re: [gentoo-dev] Documentating advanced portage feaetures in Gentoo Handbook

2012-01-03 Thread Sven Vermeulen
On Tue, Jan 03, 2012 at 09:57:04PM +, Roy Bamford wrote:
> Team,
> 
> The Gentoo Handbook is about getting the base system installed. 
> As such features such as per package CFLAGS have no place there.  They 
> are not within the scope of installing the base system.

I disagree. The first part is about getting a base system. The rest of the
handbook is to describe the Gentoo-specific administrative stuff. 

Wkr,
    Sven Vermeulen



[gentoo-dev] Documentating advanced portage feaetures in Gentoo Handbook

2012-01-03 Thread Sven Vermeulen
Hi guys,

There's a small discussion going on on gentoo-doc [1] about documenting (or
not documenting) advanced portage features in the Gentoo handbook. The
suggestion currently is to have it as an added chapter in "Working with
Portage" of which you can find a preview on [2] (don't mind the numbering).

[1] 
http://archives.gentoo.org/gentoo-doc/msg_f3c1439def8cd1df8b0f57fdbb7e6462.xml
[2] http://dev.gentoo.org/~swift/docs/previews/hb-portage-advanced.xml

The discussion however is if it is okay to document these things there or
not. Some of the features are considered to be too "fragile" to be broadly
documented (at least in a beginners resource like the Gentoo Handbook) and
might cause eventual bugs to be closed as RESO:WONTFIX because the user used
such a feature.

Since you're the community at large for supporting stuff, we'd like to know
if it is okay to document these things in the Gentoo Handbook (and if we
need to put in specific warnings to ensure people don't abuse the
functionality) or if you would rather not see it in.

I personally don't think we cannot "not document" it. Eventually, the Gentoo
WiKi will have it documented anyhow, and I already notice that many of the
features are already used in #gentoo or gentoo-user@g.o. But there's still a
difference between "not documenting" and putting it in the Gentoo Handbook.

Thoughts? Suggestions?

Wkr,
Sven Vermeulen



Re: [gentoo-dev] rfc: locations of binaries and separate /usr

2012-01-02 Thread Sven Vermeulen
On Sun, Jan 01, 2012 at 03:21:47PM -0500, Olivier Crête wrote:
> > But if people really want to focus on initramfs, I'd appreciate some
> > documentation help on it. Not only on how to create one, but also why it is
> > necessary, how to manage initramfs'es, the concepts underlying, etc.
> 
> Short version: use dracut.

And how does dracut know which files it needs to mount my /usr? 

Wkr,
Sven Vermeulen



Re: [gentoo-dev] rfc: locations of binaries and separate /usr

2012-01-01 Thread Sven Vermeulen
On Sat, Dec 31, 2011 at 07:59:47PM -0600, William Hubbs wrote:
> The goal is to deprecate /bin, /lib, /sbin and /usr/sbin. My
> understanding is that they want to move software that is installed in
> /bin, /sbin and /usr/sbin to /usr/bin. Also, they want to move
> everything from /lib to /usr/lib.

I don't like this one bit. Things used to be simple with the "split" between
/bin and /usr/bin (and its related directories), this isn't going to make it
more simple.

> 1) Start migrating packages along with upstream and have everyone who
> has a separate /usr (including me by the way) start using an initramfs
> of some kind, either dracut or one that we generate specifically for
> gentoo. The reason I suggest the initramfs, is, unfortunately if we
> migrate everything, nothing else would work.

I use a separate /usr with LVM on all my systems. My root partition uses
RAID1. And I never had the need for an initramfs of any kind. Also, there
are some major hurdles to take when it comes to getting an initramfs working
with SELinux. Most initramfs implementations I saw are not SELinux aware, so
all changes they make to the system either result in failures when they try,
or failures when the root-switch occurs.

> 3) Try to maintain  things the way they are as long as possible.

I'm all for this one. 

But if people really want to focus on initramfs, I'd appreciate some
documentation help on it. Not only on how to create one, but also why it is
necessary, how to manage initramfs'es, the concepts underlying, etc.

Wkr,
Sven Vermeulen




Re: [gentoo-dev] We need *you* for a USE="selinux" dependency

2011-12-05 Thread Sven Vermeulen
On Mon, Dec 05, 2011 at 08:54:13AM +0100, "Paweł Hajdan, Jr." wrote:
> > In Gentoo, unlike some other distributions, we try to keep the number of
> > loaded/installed modules to a minimum so that policy rebuilds as well as the
> > system overhead is limited. This results in a "base" policy (provided by
> > selinux-base-policy) and modules (provided by 
> > sec-policy/selinux-). To make
> > sure that installations of a package pull in the right SELinux module, the
> > proper dependencies must be defined.
> 
> Are you sure this is right choice? It seems to me that it'd be better to
> focus no making things work, and increasing the complexity of the deps
> makes this harder (and increasing the number of packages you maintain
> too). Unless you have _abundant_ resources to deal with that, I'd like
> to discourage you from handling policies that way.

For end users, this is much more enjoyable. If we load up all policies, then
any interaction with the SELinux policies will take some time. Also, all
policies in memory do take up some space. Finally, for development purposes,
this is very much enjoyable as well, since it allows for much faster policy
development (rebuild policies in seconds to minutes rather than dozen of
minutes).

Maintenance is actually pretty easy. The eclass we use provides us with a
very easy interface to add modules, and because it is a module per ebuild,
we can push changes on individual modules without pushing full policy builds
again.

> Furthermore, imagine I'm adding a new package "foo" that is covered by
> the SELinux policy. Most developers don't use SELinux (hey, I suspect
> most of them don't even use developer profile; bad, bad!). How do I know
> whether it's sec-policy/selinux-foo that's not yet added or
> sec-policy/selinux-games or something else... If the complete policy is
> in one package, this should be obvious, and we don't even need deps for
> that.

I know. This is one major hurdle that we need to take on. Using dependencies
is the "easiest" approach, albeit the most resource intensive one
(initially, that is). I don't mind having the dependencies added as we go.
For our end users, we already documented that missing modules are to be
expected and how to resolve it.

> As said by other devs here, I also think it'd be more effective if you
> just do the change yourself. USE="selinux" doesn't affect anything else
> so it's safe.

Ok, no problem. I'll check on IRC regardless, if not just to give a "heads
up" on changes.

Also, my apologies for not sorting the list. Careful readers will notice it
is sorted, but by the package name, not category :/ 

Thanks you all for the feedback!

Wkr,
Sven Vermeulen



[gentoo-dev] We need *you* for a USE="selinux" dependency

2011-12-04 Thread Sven Vermeulen
Hi guys 'n gals

obligatory tl;dr:
  Please check your package below this list and see if it (the package) has
  a proper DEPEND and RDEPEND on the listed sec-policy/selinux- 
package(s)

Within the Gentoo Hardened project, we are working on getting the SELinux
support into shape. Recent evolutions are the stabilization of latest upstream
userspace utilities and policies as well as documentation improvements and even
some "human resource improvements" (read: fresh blood in our ranks).

Within SELinux, specific modules are used (called SELinux modules, because we
are not that creative in our naming) that contain the SELinux policy (what is
allowed) as well as labeling information for files (which we call file context
information). This labeling is very important in order for the policies to work
well - wrong labels will lead to applications running with wrong permissions
(which usually means "Application No Workie").

In Gentoo, unlike some other distributions, we try to keep the number of
loaded/installed modules to a minimum so that policy rebuilds as well as the
system overhead is limited. This results in a "base" policy (provided by
selinux-base-policy) and modules (provided by sec-policy/selinux-). 
To make
sure that installations of a package pull in the right SELinux module, the
proper dependencies must be defined.

In the list below you will find "package dependency" information. This means
that the given package should have both DEPEND and RDEPEND on the dependency
(which is always of the form sec-policy/selinux- since dependencies
on sec-policy/selinux-base-policy are always satisfied the moment a user has 
SELinux
enabled on his Gentoo system).

The dependency should be USE="selinux"-triggered (the selinux USE flag is masked
for non-SELinux profiles and mandatory on SELinux systems), like so:
IUSE="selinux"
DEPEND="selinux? ( sec-policy/selinux- )"
RDEPEND="selinux? ( sec-policy/selinux- )"

The dependency must be on both levels, because the SELinux module must be
installed before the package is installed (and in theory, RDEPEND could
trigger an installation afterwards): during the installation phase, Portage
labels the files on the system (which would get wrong labels if the module
isn't installed yet[1]). Also, DEPEND isn't sufficient due to binary package
support requirements.

Since there are quite a few packages that would need updates, I thought about
first mailing gentoo-dev for feedback and perhaps a first chunk of work done. I
also wouldn't mind creating bugreports for each of them, but that would still be
best done after having mailed gentoo-dev ;-)

Wkr,
Sven Vermeulen

[1] I am aware that Portage currently installs RDEPEND before the package
itself, but that might change in the future and other package managers might
exhibit different behavior.

games-board/aisleriot sec-policy/selinux-games
sys-apps/apmd sec-policy/selinux-apm
net-dns/bind sec-policy/selinux-bind
net-wireless/bluez sec-policy/selinux-bluetooth
app-i18n/canna sec-policy/selinux-canna
app-cdr/cdrkit sec-policy/selinux-cdrecord
app-cdr/cdrtools sec-policy/selinux-cdrecord
app-antivirus/clamav sec-policy/selinux-clamav
net-im/climm sec-policy/selinux-games
mail-mta/courier sec-policy/selinux-courier
net-print/cups sec-policy/selinux-lpd
dev-vcs/cvs sec-policy/selinux-cvs
sys-process/daemontools sec-policy/selinux-daemontools
sys-process/daemontools-encore sec-policy/selinux-daemontools
mail-filter/dcc sec-policy/selinux-dcc
app-admin/denyhosts sec-policy/selinux-denyhosts
sys-devel/distcc sec-policy/selinux-distcc
net-dns/djbdns sec-policy/selinux-djbdns
app-arch/dpkg sec-policy/selinux-dpkg
app-cdr/dvd+rw-tools sec-policy/selinux-cdrecord
www-client/epiphany sec-policy/selinux-mozilla
x11-misc/expocity sec-policy/selinux-wm
net-analyzer/fail2ban sec-policy/selinux-fail2ban
app-arch/fastjar sec-policy/selinux-java
net-mail/fetchmail sec-policy/selinux-fetchmail
www-client/firefox-bin sec-policy/selinux-mozilla
dev-java/gcj-jdk sec-policy/selinux-java
dev-vcs/gitolite sec-policy/selinux-gitosis
dev-vcs/gitolite-gentoo sec-policy/selinux-gitosis
dev-vcs/gitosis sec-policy/selinux-gitosis
dev-vcs/gitosis-gentoo sec-policy/selinux-gitosis
virtual/gnat sec-policy/selinux-ada
gnome-base/gnome-applets sec-policy/selinux-cpufreqselector
gnome-extra/gnome-games sec-policy/selinux-games
gnome-base/gnome-shell sec-policy/selinux-wm
app-crypt/gnupg sec-policy/selinux-gpg
www-servers/gorg sec-policy/selinux-gorg
gpe-base/gpe-dm sec-policy/selinux-xserver
net-print/hplip sec-policy/selinux-cups
x11-apps/iceauth sec-policy/selinux-xserver
net-misc/icecast sec-policy/selinux-icecast
net-nntp/inn sec-policy/selinux-inn
kde-base/katomic sec-policy/selinux-games
kde-base/kbattleship sec-policy/selinux-games
sys-apps/kbd sec-policy/selinux-loadkeys
kde-base/kblackbox sec-policy/selinux-games
kde-b

Re: [gentoo-dev] supporting /usr on separate partition

2011-10-17 Thread Sven Vermeulen
On Mon, Oct 17, 2011 at 01:50:04PM -0400, Ian Stakenvicius wrote:
> > If someone wants to take on the burden of maintaining an init wrapper
> > like that, then I guess that's fine. However, I wouldn't consider it to
> > be an absolute requirement. I think it would be fine (maybe preferable)
> > to simply provide a doc that describes how to mount /usr via an
> > initramfs or linuxrc init wrapper. Such a doc would only be needed by
> > those users who require that /usr be on a separate partition.
> 
> This makes sense.  So the Handbook could be updated with a caveat after 
> the large partition example to say something like "/usr on it's own
> partition needs special consideration, please see X" ... this$
> works.

(Ian, it's a general reply, not specific to your e-mail)

I've updated the Gentoo Handbook just a few moments ago to mention something
like this in the introduction of the partition section "How Many and How
Big":

--Snippet from the commit result:
  
  However, multiple partitions have disadvantages as well. If not configured
  properly, you will have a system with lots of free space on one partition
  and none on another. Another nuisance is that separate partitions - especially
  for important mountpoints like /usr or /var -
  often require the administrator to boot with an initramfs to mount the 
partition
  before other boot scripts start. This isn't always the case though, so YMMV.
  
  
  
  There is also a 15-partition limit for SCSI and SATA unless you use GPT
  labels.
  
--End Snippet

Now, I must say I find it strange that people think that the Gentoo Handbook
suggests users to use a separate /usr partition. It does not. The default
partitioning that we use is a separate /boot (yes, this can and has been
debated in the past, I'm not going to change this) and / with a separate
swap partition. Nothing more, nothing less. There are a few code listings
where an example output is given which holds a separate /usr but I hope all
those listings are clear that they are examples.

It also states that this is an example we use in the Gentoo Handbook and
that it depends on the user how he wants his partition scheme layed out.

I'm hoping that the above update clarifies this sufficiently so that huge
threads like this one don't need to reappear again ;-) If you think it is
still unclear or needs improvements left or right, don't hesitate to mail me
or, even better, file a bugreport (I act better on bug reports than on
e-mails).

Oh, and I use a separate /usr with no initramfs (yet), with software raid 
and lvm2. 

/me quickly hides

Wkr,
Sven Vermeulen



[gentoo-dev] GCC upgrades, FUD and gentoo documentation

2011-10-08 Thread Sven Vermeulen
Hi guys

There is some FUD regarding GCC upgrades and I don't have the proper
knowledge to write a correct document on GCC upgrades. As you are currently
aware, we have a GCC upgrade guide [1], but it has seen its last update in
2008. Since then, things have undoubtedly changed.

What I can find on GCC upgrades and their apparent need (or no-need) for
rebuilding stuff:
- Since 3.4.0/4.1.0, the C++ ABI is forward-compatible, so rebuilds from
  that version onwards should not be needed
- The fix_libtool_files.sh command is now part of the toolchain eclass, so
  doesn't need to be ran by users anymore

The only thing I fail to find out is why libtool needs to be rebuild (if it
still needs to be). There are some sources telling it always needs to be
rebuild (RedHat seems to fix the two togather at all times: gcc and
libtool), others state that this is similar towards the C++ ABI, so not
needed anymore since 3.4.0/4.1.0.

I revamped the GCC Upgrade guide [2] with what I think is correct nowadays,
but this is, to be honest, a bit out of my league. That's why I'm asking
you, development community at large, to give some feedback on this, allowing
the GDP to get rid of the FUD once and for all ;-)

Wkr,
    Sven Vermeulen

[1] http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/gcc-upgrading.xml
[2] http://dev.gentoo.org/~swift/docs/previews/gcc-upgrading.xml



[gentoo-dev] Last rites: sec-policy/selinux-mta (SELinux profiles)

2011-10-07 Thread Sven Vermeulen
Hi all,

For those using one of the SELinux profiles, sec-policy/selinux-mta will be
masked/removed as its policy is already part of selinux-base-policy
(and as such gives conflicts, cfr bug #384851). 

Other people won't notice this as the package is already masked by default.

Wkr,
    Sven Vermeulen



Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Warn users not to do separate /usr partition without proper initramfs in the handbook?

2011-08-16 Thread Sven Vermeulen
On Tue, Aug 16, 2011 at 09:22:30AM -0500, Dale wrote:
> Thanks for the reply.  I also agree that the docs should be ready first 
> then the change.  I have a friend that may be switching from Gentoo because 
> he can not get good docs on how to get his network working after the OpenRC 
> update.  It appears the docs he needs aren't ready yet.  What's the point 
> of having a nice Gentoo install if you can't set up your network stuff?

I know, major apologies...

The documents (more specific, the Gentoo Handbook and a few other
high-profile ones) have been updated recently (last few days) so they should
be okay now. However, some good reviews never hurt.

If you do still find issues, don't hesitate to create a bugreport for it.

Wkr,
Sven Vermeulen




Re: [gentoo-dev] /usr vs. initramfs redux

2011-08-05 Thread Sven Vermeulen
On Fri, Aug 05, 2011 at 07:42:29PM -0500, William Hubbs wrote:
> On Fri, Aug 05, 2011 at 10:06:48PM +0200, Sven Vermeulen wrote:
> > That said, I'm a bit hesitant to describing that we "recommend" it
> > regardless of the situation. What is wrong with describing when? At least
> > inform our users that the udev rules have evolved to more than just "detect
> > and mknod" scripts and that they are now relying on files and binaries
> > available in other locations, like /usr and /var.
> 
> It looks like the situation where we will have to have one is if /usr
> and /var are not on the same file system as /, because of how udev has
> evolved.

This isn't always true. I have /usr and /var on separate logical volumes
(and as such, separate file systems) yet I don't use DEVTMPFS nor an
initrd/initramfs, so I'm sure that the answer is a bit more specific.

Wkr,
Sven Vermeulen



Re: [gentoo-dev] /usr vs. initramfs redux

2011-08-05 Thread Sven Vermeulen
On Fri, Aug 05, 2011 at 08:25:19AM -0500, Matthew Summers wrote:
> This, at least to me, seems like an excellent opportunity to nicely
> document what can be done with an initramfs (in basic and advanced
> forms, as there are some really fancy things one can do with
> initramfs's), and how Gentoo is recommending their usage in the cases
> outlined by Robin and others.

I'm all in favor of documenting what an initramfs does (or at least what it
is supposed to do), how it works, how to create one, how to debug issues
while booting with one, etc.

That said, I'm a bit hesitant to describing that we "recommend" it
regardless of the situation. What is wrong with describing when? At least
inform our users that the udev rules have evolved to more than just "detect
and mknod" scripts and that they are now relying on files and binaries
available in other locations, like /usr and /var.

How does the tool that creates an initramfs know which files to copy from
/usr and /var anyhow? 

Also, how well does this play with all our profiles (so not only the popular
architectures)? What about SELinux and/or grSecurity's RBAC model? Are these
supported throughout the initramfs?

Wkr,
Sven Vermeulen



Re: [gentoo-dev] Warn users not to do separate /usr partition without proper initramfs in the handbook?

2011-08-04 Thread Sven Vermeulen
On Thu, Aug 04, 2011 at 09:31:07AM -0500, William Hubbs wrote:
> Add another to the list of folks who disagree with this and with the
> approach being taken.
> 
> I don't blame gentoo devs per se, but I do feel like this is being
> forced down everyone's throats without any regard to the *nix philosophy
> of having separate /usr which has worked for years, and if people would
> fix their bugs correctly would continue to work.

Same here. I do consider the situation to be a bug and, even if the damage
is already done, it doesn't mean we should help with debolishing what is
left.

If anything, we should make it clear to users when and why an initramfs is
needed. Saying "because you have a /usr on a separate file system" is not
only a lie, it also covers the truth beneath it. Rather, why not identify in
which situation(s) you will need an initramfs and work from there?

I personally have /usr on a separate partition too (using LVM) without an
initramfs or initrd. Works just fine. And I'd like to keep it that way,
since it is simple and very manageable.

Wkr,
Sven Vermeulen



Re: [gentoo-dev] License Interpretation

2008-08-21 Thread Sven Vermeulen
On Wed, Aug 20, 2008 at 9:10 PM, Jim Ramsay <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> 2.5.1  You may not modify, adapt, translate or create derivative works
> based upon the Software. You may not reverse engineer, decompile,
> disassemble or otherwise attempt to discover the source code of the
> Software except to the extent you may be expressly permitted to
> decompile under applicable law, it is essential to do so in order to
> achieve operability of the Software with another software program, and
> you have first requested Adobe to provide the information necessary to
> achieve such operability and Adobe has not made such information
> available.
>
> I *think* I would be okay using this binary patch since:
>
> 1) This is specifically to make it operable with libcurl.so.4
> 2) I have (and others have) asked Adobe to recompile it with support
> for libcurl.so.4 instead of libcurl.so.3, but they have not done so (or
> responded to any of these requests, as far as I am aware).

Actually (and I'm no lawyer either), I think a binary patch isn't allowed:

> You may not modify, adapt, translate or create derivative works
> based upon the Software.

The rest of the paragraph is about obtaining (or trying to obtain) its
source code or application behavior, i.e. learn the program, not
modify it.

Wkr,
  Sven Vermeulen



Re: EAPI definition Was: [gentoo-dev] [GLEP] Use EAPI-suffixed ebuilds (.ebuild-EAPI)

2007-12-27 Thread Sven Vermeulen
On Dec 27, 2007 11:40 PM, Doug Klima <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
[... EAPI is stuff PM supports/exports to the ebuild ...]
> Logical and proper to me.

Actually, when I'm asked what EAPI is, I just say "EAPI is a standard
definition for the ebuild structure, implying supporting features from
the package manager."

Most of the time, the user is happy with the answer ;-)

Wkr,
  Sven Vermeulen
-- 
[EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list



Re: [gentoo-dev] Good-bye

2007-11-25 Thread Sven Vermeulen
On Nov 24, 2007 6:39 PM, Seemant Kulleen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> The time has finally come for me to resign from Gentoo.  I've been
> meaning to do it for many months now, but the logistics took a little
> bit of time.

Seemant

Good luck with your future endeavors. If you ever come over to
Belgium, be sure to contact me so I can guide you around a bit and we
can have a nice talk with some good beers ;-) It seems like Gentoo is
undergoing a generation switch - many of the elderly are taking on
less responsibilities (or even retire) to give place to the energetic
new developers ;-)

Anyway, have fun and we'll sure see you around!

Wkr,
  Sven Vermeulen
-- 
[EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list



Re: [gentoo-dev] jmbsvicetto is now Sparc AT Subproject Lead

2007-10-18 Thread Sven Vermeulen
On 10/18/07, Ferris McCormick <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>I'm pleased to announce that Jorge Manual B S Vicetto
> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> has taken the lead of the Sparc AT
> (Architecture Testers) subproject.  As you know, Jorge has been a member
> of the Sparc AT subproject from its beginning, and  he was willing to
> become its lead when I begged him to do so.  Please give him the usual
> Gentoo words of encouragement for which we are so well known.

My condolences to Jorge...

Or isn't that the encouragement you were looking for? *g*

Hit the bug(ger)s!

Wkr,
  Sven Vermeulen
-- 
[EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list



Re: [gentoo-dev] New Staff Developer: Maarten Bressers (mbres)

2007-08-28 Thread Sven Vermeulen
On 8/28/07, Hans de Graaff <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I can confirm that Boxtel is in the Netherlands. And it's next to one of
> my favorite nature reserves in the Netherlands: De Kampina. Recommended
> for some hiking.

Mo milk

(Sais larry who doesn't distinguish between K and C).

Wkr,
  Sven Vermeulen
-- 
[EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list



Re: [gentoo-dev] New (old) Developer: Dimitry Brad (diox)

2007-07-29 Thread Sven Vermeulen
On 7/29/07, Christian Heim <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> It's my pleasure to (re)-introduce to you Dimitry Brad (also known as diox on
> IRC), our latest addition joining the x86 arch monkeys.
>
> Dimitry has been a Gentoo Developer for quite some time (it has been nearly a
> year now), and he finally sent in his ebuild quiz and thus becoming a
> full-fledged Ebuild developer.
>
> So please welcome Dimitry as a new (old) fellow developer among us !

Even though diox is short, I'd like to propose a nickchange to O2 to
save some expensive bytes. But for the rest: always welcome Dimitry !
;-)

Wkr,
  Sven Vermeulen
-- 
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Re: [gentoo-dev] Linking to Gentoo-wiki from www.gentoo.org

2006-10-04 Thread Sven Vermeulen
Andrew Ross said:
> http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/draft/complete/handbook.xml?part=1&chap=6#doc_chap2
> (Yes, it's only a draft, but it still meets your criteria)

It is in a section describing where to find information, more particularly
about "Massive collaboration guides" and states "There is an unofficial
Gentoo Wiki filled with guides written by several hundreds of users."

I'm sure this can't be wrong...

Wkr,
  Sven Vermeulen
-- 
gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list



Re: [gentoo-dev] The Gentoo Project proudly presents *drums* anigel *applaud*

2006-09-04 Thread Sven Vermeulen
On Mon, Sep 04, 2006 at 09:43:23AM -0400, Michael Cummings wrote:
> Sven Vermeulen wrote:
> > At least there's one sane property on this guy - he doesn't like the Perl
> > language. And for that alone I disregard his mushroom incident... as long as
> > he doesn't think he sees Larry fly.
> 
> Bah. Can't believe I read through all that to get insulted.
> 

So you consider yourself sane huh?

-- 
  
  The Gentoo Project   <<< http://www.gentoo.org >>>


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[gentoo-dev] The Gentoo Project proudly presents *drums* anigel *applaud*

2006-09-04 Thread Sven Vermeulen
Yes indeed my best audience, Gentoo now has a new developer in town. His
name? Not important. His function? Not important either. His looks? Ugly as
hell... why we want him? Because I am fond of french wifes, and he has one.

Yes indeed my best audience, anigel is a Frenchie, a "Limougeaud" to be
exact (which is an inhabitant of Limoges, the préfecture of the Haute-Vienne
département). Stupefied? I know I am. And not only does he have a wife, he
also has dinner for vapier - a beautiful young cat. 

Yes indeed my best audience, he is an animal lover. Fits right in. Jforman
has another goatsitter and this one wont drive to jforman's house. No, he'll
ride his bike to it.

Yes indeed, my best audience, anigel seems to have a good condition. While
most of us have long saluted their bike before they turned 26, anigel still
loves to cycle through the woods, or just walking, looking for mushrooms.

Err, wait a minute! Mushrooms !?!

Aaarghh, what kind of freak did I introduce here? Another one for the pile
of nuts in which we can find seemant, g2boojum and dsd. So now the nut pile
has been extended with Hubert Mercier, a French Forum Administrator who in
real life administers Unix systems. 

At least there's one sane property on this guy - he doesn't like the Perl
language. And for that alone I disregard his mushroom incident... as long as
he doesn't think he sees Larry fly.


Sven Vermeulen

-- 
  
  The Gentoo Project   <<< http://www.gentoo.org >>>


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[gentoo-dev] I'm "frilled" to present to you, a new Gentoo developer

2006-07-25 Thread Sven Vermeulen
... which brings the German Conspiracy at 38. His nick is "frilled", but in
real life you'll call him "Giesen, Wolf Giesen". Shaken, not stirred. And
you'll call him that in the IT department of "Aschendorff Medien", publisher
of the "Westfälische Nachrichten", whatever that is.

You're probably all wondering what he's good at. He likes animals, so might
make a good nanny for jforman's goats. And if klieber trained them well
during the holidays, frilled will not need a dog to shepHerd them. Which is
good, actually, 'cause he isn't all that fond of dogs anyway. Sorry beandog,
no cookies for you.

He's good in languages too. German and English are two of them, C is another
good one. More evil languages he speaks are C++, Perl, PHP and ba(sh) not to
speak of the Sum of All Fears, Java. But programming isn't really his thing.

No, he's better in speaking in public if I may interprete "Public Relations"
as such. Another journalist - we will all watch more security related
articles in the GWN. If not, we'll drop Larry on him. Another animal he
likes. Makes me wonder if the feeling is mutual.

Oh, in Gentoo, he's going to work in the Security Team, so jaervosz has
finally found himself another pet slave. Sorry Koon, you'll have to share
Sune now. Will he show some tricks from the Ruhrgebiet, or rather from his
current location - Münster?

As you all might have guessed, he mentioned his first computer (TRS-80) in
his introduction, but I wasn't impressed. The older their computer, the
older their mind. Look paps, no hands!

Anyway, he loves books and movies too - as well as a good beer. If you ever
find the time, come over to Belgium and I'll show you what *real* beers are
like. 

You get a good 'old welcome from me, Wolf. Welcome.

Wkr,
  Sven Vermeulen

-- 
  Gentoo Foundation Trustee  |  http://foundation.gentoo.org

  The Gentoo Project   <<< http://www.gentoo.org >>>


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[gentoo-dev] GLEP ?? - Gentoo Knowledge Base

2006-06-21 Thread Sven Vermeulen
Hi folks

I've just sent the GLEP to the GLEP editors so they can give it a nice
number, but you'll find the text at
http://dev.gentoo.org/~swift/tmp/kbase-glep.html as well. 

The GLEP covers the requirements I'd like to put on the Knowledge Base (KB).
I didn't get much response on it on the gentoo-kbase mailinglist though,
hopefully because everybody agrees (instead of laughing at it behind my back
;-) so I now present it to a larger community.

I've also mailed the gentoo-kbase mailinglist with the next steps to
complete: define an XML format for the KB topics (which is an *intermediate*
format - definitely not the final one) and after that start creating lots of
topics in that format.

This is necessary because, if we want a good KB, we need to be able to test
it well, so we need content. At the same time, we should start looking for
possible existing technologies that we can use for the KB (we're all lazy).
Each time a good candidate is found, we can put the topics in it and test
it.

For more discussion on this, please use the gentoo-kbase mailinglist.

Wkr,
  Sven Vermeulen

PS I've tried to get it on the gmane lists but apparently failed. I'll
retry. 

-- 
  Gentoo Foundation Trustee  |  http://foundation.gentoo.org
  Gentoo Council Member  

  The Gentoo Project   <<< http://www.gentoo.org >>>


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Re: [gentoo-dev] RFC - Gentoo Knowledge Base

2006-05-17 Thread Sven Vermeulen
On Wed, May 17, 2006 at 03:17:33PM +0200, Kristian Gavran wrote:
> Why reinvent the wheel?!?
> Gentoo has a really nice wiki: <http://gentoo-wiki.com/Main_Page>

A wiki is more of a documentation system than a knowledge base. I think some
KBs could very well employ a wiki as back-technology for writing the
articles. But a KB is more strict in its writing: it can have a fixed layout
(like "title, synopsis, environment, analysis, solution" [1]), allows for
additional metadata (keywords, references to other articles, point-system
per query, ...) and focuses more on its search technology than on the
writing.

Wkr,
  Sven Vermeulen

[1] This is actually what I had in mind for the Gentoo KB

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[gentoo-dev] RFC - Gentoo Knowledge Base

2006-05-16 Thread Sven Vermeulen
Hi all,

For some time now, the idea of a Gentoo Knowledge Base, like RedHat [1]
and Microsoft [2] do, has been brewing in Andrés Pereira and my minds. Not
only that, but a feature request was also filed some time ago [3] and just
recently a forum thread was started for it [4].

So, what is this about?

A Knowledge Base provides answers to specific questions and problems that
users (or developers) might encounter. It is easily searchable and
maintained by developers who are knowledgeable in the topic. The knowledge
base entries ("topics" as I like to call them) are not documentation guides,
but very specific to a particular environment and question. They should
leave absolutely *no* room for different interpretations.

I have started a project site for this at
http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/kbase. A mailinglist has been created and will
hopefully start a nice discussion about this topic. The mailinglist is
[EMAIL PROTECTED] afaik. Once we have a nice idea about where we want
to go (sic), a GLEP will probably follow for those who don't want to follow
the mailinglist but do want to know what we will be/are doing.

Wkr,
  Sven Vermeulen

[1] http://kb.redhat.com
[2] http://support.microsoft.com
[3] https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=102200
[4] http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-462377.html

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  The Gentoo Project   <<< http://www.gentoo.org >>>


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[gentoo-dev] Council meeting logs for 2006-05-11

2006-05-13 Thread Sven Vermeulen
The meeting logs and summary for today's meeting have been committed to the
Council Project page (http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/council) and are readily
available.

Summary:

"""
In today's meeting, the QA-team GLEP (48) was brought into the field.
The GLEP discusses the role of the QA team and its powers and was accepted
by the gentoo-dev participants with little to no objections. The council
therefore had only a few questions (can a single QA member act - yes, does
it only work on the tree or on documentation too - tree currently) and
accepted the GLEP for execution by 5 votes and 1 abstained.
"""

Like I said on the meeting, I need coffee, so please forgive any spelling
and grammar mistakes made.

Wkr,
  Sven Vermeulen


-- 
  Gentoo Foundation Trustee  |  http://foundation.gentoo.org
  Gentoo Council Member  

  The Gentoo Project   <<< http://www.gentoo.org >>>


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Re: [gentoo-dev] RFC: emerge snapshots

2006-01-26 Thread Sven Vermeulen
On Wed, Jan 25, 2006 at 02:12:38AM +0900, Kalin KOZHUHAROV wrote:
> r100
> emerge foo
> r101
> emerge --unmerge foo
> r102

You're like asking to put your entire system under a versioning system
control. Sounds like fun, but also like a lot of diskspace usage on your
versioning server.

$ ${VCTOOL} commit --label=r100 --recursive /
$ emerge foo
$ ${VCTOOL} commit --label=r101 --recursive /
...
$ ${VCTOOL} checkout --label=r100 --recursive /

Using the FEATURES="buildpkg" helps a lot, especially if you also take
snapshots of your portage tree (since any breakage due to an "emerge -uDN
world" can hopefully be fixed by restoring the backup portage tree and run
"emerge -uDN world" again).

If you then put your configuration files under versioning control, you
should be set.

Wkr,
  Sven Vermeulen

-- 
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  The Gentoo Project   <<< http://www.gentoo.org >>>


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Re: [gentoo-dev] Projects and simple guides

2006-01-11 Thread Sven Vermeulen
Lance Albertson said:
> I can probably setup toucan to use gorg in some fashion if I had a few
> folks to test it with. I'm sure that would make things easier for a lot
> of people for rendering things.

Since documentation posted on dev.gentoo.org isn't Gentoo's by default, it
might not be a good idea to use the Gentoo layout, the CC-BY-SA license by
default and the "Comments? Corrections? [EMAIL PROTECTED]" footer...

It isn't a biggie to change the styles so that dev.gentoo.org uses a nice
template which still leaves room for both GuideXML usage /and/ be less
strict on the above items.

Wkr,
  Sven Vermeulen
-- 
gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list



Re: [gentoo-dev] Projects and simple guides

2006-01-10 Thread Sven Vermeulen
Chris Gianelloni said:
> Really, I think that the number of bugs the GDP gets is probably fairly
> minimal for project-based documentation.  Perhaps we could have
> something added to the project dtd that adds a little blurb at the
> bottom to file bugs for project documentation against the project
> itself?  I really don't know if that would help or not, but it is an
> idea.

The amount of bugs isn't the problem, but it does serve as a warning event
to show the user how fragmented a project goal can be. In this case, not
even all documentation is handled by the documentation team.

Wkr,
  Sven Vermeulen
-- 
gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list



Re: [gentoo-dev] Projects and simple guides

2006-01-09 Thread Sven Vermeulen
On Sun, Jan 08, 2006 at 06:45:01PM +, Luis Medinas wrote:
> We could start a public wiki displaying all herds and projects. It would
> be great to add some low level docs, herds/project goals, ideas and so.
> Even the users could be allowed to edit and share information.

I would personally welcome additional documentation, but if we're going to
add an official Wiki for Gentoo, we're basically splitting the documentation
development on many sides. 

What used to be a (forced) monopoly for GuideXML becomes a set of GuideXML,
RST and Wiki. Although I have indeed read that the goal of the documents
differ, we are placing a boundary on what GDP should do and shouldn't.

We have already received many bugs for documentation in /proj/* which is
not GDPs. I had no issue with this as I hoped this would be a transient
state where the documentation is eventually handed over to the GDP so that
both the project /and/ GDP can further maintain the documents.

A wiki is nice, but don't forget that it only allows for online
documentation editing. I am one of those devs who develops his
documentation mostly off-line. There is also no quality assurance over a
wiki and not that many wikis have decent versioning tools (or they have them
but they're really awkward to use).

The Java team already uses the gentoo-wiki.com infrastructure, indeed an
unofficial wiki for official documentation. 

Wkr,
  Sven Vermeulen

-- 
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  The Gentoo Project   <<< http://www.gentoo.org >>>


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Re: [gentoo-dev] Monthly Gentoo Council Reminder for January

2006-01-03 Thread Sven Vermeulen
On Tue, Jan 03, 2006 at 06:21:39PM +0100, Sven Vermeulen wrote:
> There are some interesting ideas on the Gentoo Forums that aren't situated
> in any of the current projects, such as "Top-100 Feature Requests" [1], 
> "Gentoo
> Binary profile" [2], "Gentoo Knowledge Base" [3], "USE-flag triggered
> software installation" [4], etc.
[...]

(Sorry, pressed "send" too soon).

However, having such proposals is great, but they need to be worked out by
one or more users and formed into a GLEP. Such GLEPs can then be discussed
on the mailinglist and sent for "approval" to the Gentoo Council.

Now this is where the Gentoo Council comes in: its role is to /advise/
Gentoo's development, not regulate. If GLEPs come occasionally, there is
barely any reason not to positively advise to implement GLEP. After all, if
there are issues with it they would either be broken down during the
mailinglist discussions, or they are broken down when the teams themselves
refuse to implement them.

When several GLEPs require (immediate) attention, the Council will try to
advise where the priorities should be placed (which GLEP goes first).

When several GLEPs interfere with each other, the Council will try to advise
which GLEP is most beneficial for Gentoo and its community.

Some people hope to see the Council as a regulating body. Forget it,
developers are the brains that lead Gentoo's evolution, voluntary work is the 
blood that keeps Gentoo rolling, the community is the heart for which
we all work. As such, there is no single regulating body.

And as much as I hope to see a select few bring bright ideas, coördinate
projects and make everyone's work easier, I have seen too many attempts that
kill bright ideas to know far from everyone would be happy with such a
situation.

Wkr,
  Sven Vermeulen

-- 
  Gentoo Foundation Trustee  |  http://foundation.gentoo.org
  Gentoo Council Member  

  The Gentoo Project   <<< http://www.gentoo.org >>>


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Re: [gentoo-dev] Monthly Gentoo Council Reminder for January

2006-01-03 Thread Sven Vermeulen
On Mon, Jan 02, 2006 at 12:14:05PM -0600, Lance Albertson wrote:
> Since the council is the closest representation to a leader we have, I'd
> like to ask if they can come up with some kind of global goals for 2006
> and beyond. 

I couldn't agree more, yet I'm afraid Gentoo has grown too large to do this
efficiently. Many ideas are easily marked as WONTFIX (due to resource
restrictions), CANTFIX (since it would mean a rewrite of Portage) or
WORKSFORME (when /your/ way works). And when a proposal makes it to the
mailinglist, only a small number of developers is interested in
participating. The majority doesn't care, and a vocal minority tries
everything in its power to prevent the project from succeeding.

What could Gentoo bring out as a global goal for 2006 which isn't part of a
single Gentoo project? Things like "Have an automated installer" (Installer
Project), "Document enterprise usage of Gentoo" (Documentation Team), "Port
Gentoo to ReactOS" (Gentoo/ALT), "Introduce signing of all Portage Tree
files" (Portage Team), ... are all great accomplishments if they succeed
(note: some of the above are hypothetical, in case you are wondering :) but
only span one project.

In my opinion, all projects should bring out global goals for themselves.
The Gentoo Global Goals for 2006 would then be an overview of those goals.
Yet the Gentoo Council doesn't bring any input here.

There are some interesting ideas on the Gentoo Forums that aren't situated
in any of the current projects, such as "Top-100 Feature Requests" [1], "Gentoo
Binary profile" [2], "Gentoo Knowledge Base" [3], "USE-flag triggered
software installation" [4], etc.

Wkr,
  Sven Vermeulen

[1] A site where the community can vote (one vote per bugzilla account?) on
feature requests (or bugs), could be integrated in bugzilla if that's
possible, but can also be a separate site where the feature request is
formed dynamically (wiki?) or by discussion (forum).
[2] A profile that freezes CFLAGS/CXXFLAGS/CHOST/USE/... and uses a build
server to build binary packages for that binary-package profile. The
project should not focus on the end result itself but rather on how all
this is accomplished using Gentoo and how companies and organisations
can easily implement a similar environment
[3] Something like Microsoft's KB where common issues are well explained,
resolutions documented and where a good search mechanism is in place to
help find the right solution. Would require moderation so that solutions
are correct. Could provide dual solutions: one community-written (open
wiki), one developers accepted (moderated wiki).
[4] Setting a USE flag triggers the installation of some recommended
software so that novices don't need to search for the right software.
Fex: USE="kde cdr" -> kde-meta + k3b 

-- 
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  The Gentoo Project   <<< http://www.gentoo.org >>>


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[gentoo-dev] Stepping aside...

2005-12-23 Thread Sven Vermeulen
Hi all

It is with deep regret that I want to inform you about my decision to step
down from the position of Gentoo Documentation lead. 

Over the years, the Gentoo Documentation Project has grown, evolved and
matured to what it is today: a well functioning documentation-machine
devoted to the ongoing development and maintenance of Gentoo's
documentation. Many resources are referring to our documentation to show
others how things should be done.

Such appreciation isn't due to a single individual, but because of an entire
team of coördinators, editors, authors, translators and contributors. In my
time as translator (first), editor (second) and lead (until present) I have
always appreciated the friendlyness and helpfulness of this entire
community.

In my position as documentation lead, I tried to keep the project on track,
managing subprojects where possible and help shed some light on obscure or
difficult problems that arose during the documentation development (no,
"editing" isn't all that the GDP does). I hope that I did this well, at
least I have not heard differently.

However, leading a project also requires high availability; e-mails should
be followed-up quickly, conversations with team members must happen (even if
not scheduled), hotfixes must be committed as soon as possible, etc. When I
was a student, free time wasn't scarce (I didn't follow that much lectures -
yes, "bad, bad me") so I could devote much time to Gentoo.

Lately, because my work now doesn't leave me much time (not that the work is
extremely demanding, but it's 2.5h away from home and I don't have Internet
access on the train), I found myself in a position where I wasn't able to
talk to my fellow GDP (and other Gentoo) developers or contribute to the
interesting topics in #gentoo or other Gentoo related chat channels.

This situation won't improve much in the first few months, or perhaps even
year, until I settle somewhere more closely to my job. For this reason, I
have decided not to take on the lead position anymore.

I will remain a member of the Gentoo Documentation Project, hacking away at
guides such as that bootstrapping one and the Gentoo Handbook, but I hand
the coördination over to Xavier Neys who was virtually leading the GDP
anyway and does seem to find a good balance between real-life and
Gentoo-life :)

For those who wonder, this shouldn't affect any other responsibilities I
have within Gentoo, including Foundation and Council, as most of that work
happens off-line anyway or at scheduled IRC meetings. However, I can imagine
that some developers voted for me for my position rather than my person. If
there is a (large) demand for it, I have no problems in attempting to get
re-elected for those positions (or stepping down if I am not).

With kind regards (yes, that's what "Wkr" stands for),

Sven Vermeulen

-- 
  Gentoo Foundation Trustee  |  http://foundation.gentoo.org
  Gentoo Council Member  

  The Gentoo Project   <<< http://www.gentoo.org >>>


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Re: [gentoo-dev] December Council Meeting

2005-12-10 Thread Sven Vermeulen
On Sat, Dec 10, 2005 at 11:15:15AM +0200, Marius Mauch wrote:
> No, I mean the mail I sent to council@ a few weeks ago (relating to an 
> earier -dev thread).

Oh, the tree signing stuff. Got it. Sorry. 

Wkr,
  Sven Vermeulen

-- 
  Gentoo Foundation Trustee  |  http://foundation.gentoo.org
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Re: [gentoo-dev] December Council Meeting

2005-12-10 Thread Sven Vermeulen
On Thu, Dec 08, 2005 at 01:56:37AM +0100, Marius Mauch wrote:
> > current agenda:
> decision on multi-hash for Manifest1

You mean the Manifest2 GLEP, or did I miss something?

Wkr,
  Sven Vermeulen

-- 
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Re: [gentoo-dev] New Dev: Marien Zwart (marienz)

2005-11-24 Thread Sven Vermeulen
On Wed, Nov 23, 2005 at 09:51:25AM -0600, Brian Harring wrote:
> Please welcome Marien Zwart, aka marienz to the crew.  He's joining up 
> as a python monkey, working on twisted (2.x stable ebuilds anyone? 
> ^.^), portage 3 hacking, and pretty much anything python wise.
> Finally, he's been helping out in #gentoo for quite some time.
[...]

Hey I know that lurker from #gentoo...

Welcome aboard!

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Decision to remove stage1/2 from installation documentation

2005-11-23 Thread Sven Vermeulen
On Wed, Nov 23, 2005 at 10:24:55AM +0100, Paul de Vrieze wrote:
> Most people that complain are probably misinformed about the usefulness of 
> stages 1 and 2. They are really only useful if you know what you're doing 
> and don't really need the handbook that much. Those users should be able 
> to find the alternative installation docs. I do agree however that there 
> should be some link to the relevant documentation from the handbook.

Actually the migration process did all that in one step:

- Update the Handbook
  . Remove stage1/2 instructions
  . Add a /couple/ of references to the Gentoo FAQ
- Update the Gentoo FAQ
- Update the Gentoo Handbook FAQ

Perhaps I should use the ... tags more often.

Wkr,
  Sven Vermeulen

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Update of http://wwwredesign.gentoo.org

2005-11-23 Thread Sven Vermeulen
On Wed, Nov 23, 2005 at 06:05:53PM +, Ciaran McCreesh wrote:
> > Afaicr, the infinity sign will be kept, but I know a huge discussion
> > will be held on this. It's not important in this stage of the
> > development though...
> 
> And now we're told that it *was* important at that stage and it's too
> late to change things? Riiight.
> 

I said that in that stage of the redesign development the logo discussion
shouldn't be held as it is part of the design "the infinity sign will be
kept" but that we leave it open for discussion if enough shoulders are put
under it ("huge discussion").

The primary concern at that stage of the development was to continue to
develop the design/XSL so that we have something workable when we offer the
design to the public... which is now.

Like I said before, I rather like the infinity sign. The trustees have had a
discussion on this part too. Their decision was that we need a "strong,
compelling case for not using it since it is something the community has
voted on".

Wkr,
  Sven Vermeulen

-- 
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Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Decision to remove stage1/2 from installation documentation

2005-11-23 Thread Sven Vermeulen
tions well.

This is my motivation, and this motivation is mine. 

Sincerely,

  Sven Vermeulen

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Re: [gentoo-dev] status of http://wwwredesign.gentoo.org

2005-11-22 Thread Sven Vermeulen
On Mon, Nov 21, 2005 at 04:38:46PM +0300, Alexey Chumakov wrote:
> 3. It is, imho, great moment to implement some i18n together with site
> redesign. Many of us, i18n teams, have to 'clone' and maintain extensive
> community sites just to bypass artificial English-only w.g.o front page
> limitation. I think, it is reducing the amount of international Gentoo
> newbies. Did you consider to take part in the GLEP10 implementation?
[...]

You should already be able to convert most of the web site to your language.
Hard-coded lines can be taken out and changed using the inserts-${lang}.xml
method Xavier implemented. Pages at /{main,doc,proj}/en can be translated
and placed at /{main,doc,proj}/${lang}.

Wkr,
  Sven Vermeulen

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Re: [gentoo-dev] opinion on how to improve the website redesign

2005-11-22 Thread Sven Vermeulen
On Tue, Nov 22, 2005 at 03:53:22AM +0100, Thomas de Grenier de Latour wrote:
> A good start could be to do that the quick and ugly way, thanks to
> Google (with some "site:www.gentoo.org/some/thing/" and other black
> magic in the query terms).
[...]

Two major obstacles are 
- Google bases its search functionality on cached pages. 
  I would assume that most people use the search functionality to find
  documentation which gets updated quite a lot. Google might offer outdated
  links or forget to point to a valuable resource
- We would depend on Google a bit

Now Google might be a reliable web site/service, I'd rather have the search
functionality of our web site implemented on the Gentoo infrastructure. I
would even hope that we can have some tweaking possibilities in our search
functionality, such as:
- Restricting pages to /doc (documentation), /main (Gentoo information),
  /news (News items+GWN), /proj (project stuff)
- Restricting languages (en, fr, ... and any combination)
- Have the search points assigned so that hits are calculated with certain
  weights:
* title's get most of the points, unless many titles are selected
* abstract's get the second most points, yada yada
* content get third most points

Wkr,
  Sven Vermeulen

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Email subdomain

2005-11-19 Thread Sven Vermeulen
On Fri, Nov 18, 2005 at 09:09:29PM -0400, Luis F. Araujo wrote:
> What is the problem of giving them @g.o addresses?
> Why exactly do we need the distinction? (sorry, i can't see any benefit 
> but more confusion).

The GLEP was originally created to help the architecture testers with a
specific privilege: read-only CVS access. This would allow them to improve 
the quality of the ebuilds sooner, help the architecture teams identify
working (and perhaps even more important, not-working) tools and perform
tests on the global system to make sure the distribution is in top-notch
shape.

The e-mail address was not that important, but was decided to bring it in
"the package" because it would be some sort of appreciation to those users.

One general idea was that arch testers wouldn't be developers because they
have no formal obligation to the Gentoo project: we don't expect them to put
in x hours a week in Gentoo, read the gentoo-core and -dev mailinglists or 
even catch up with most of the events that happen in Gentoo (like GLEPs and 
such). This is also a request from the arch testers, because many of them
*can't* devote much time to Gentoo anyway.

That sentiment is reflected in using a subdomain address, and from what we
heard no tester had any problems with this (the e-mail addy is far less
important than the rest of the GLEP).

There was never an idea of marking one type of developer different from
another (this was in fact specifically rejected in the first meeting) but
rather giving non-developers some appreciation. Perhaps the proposed
appreciation is misplaced - fine, if that is the sentiment, we'll try to get
a better one. 

One (important) part of the GLEP is the request that the arch tester has
passed the Staff Quiz and that a probation period should be passed before
read-only CVS access is given. I'm personally wondering how close this comes
to becoming a real developer (which, iirc, is something the trustees should
be called upon as the Foundation should keep track of "what" defines a
"Gentoo Developer", as developers have voting rights on the Foundation
board). As I said before, the arch testers themselves aren't asking for
being a developer but rather for additional tools to help them do their
work.

I've said it in the first meeting and I'll reiterate: what is the sentiment
of the arch testers in this case (if they are still reading this thread)?

Wkr,
  Sven Vermeulen

PS I would be quite surprised if there is *one* arch tester who feels good
   with this entire thread; it doesn't show of much appreciation between
   people. There is a huge difference between saying that a group has "made
   an unfortunate decision" or "did not grasp the essence of the proposal
   and situation needed to make a good decision", and "abuse of powers".

PPS
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0670883395/002-5294388-6434402?v=glance&n=283155&s=books&v=glance

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Re: [gentoo-dev] implementation details for GLEP 41

2005-11-19 Thread Sven Vermeulen
On Sat, Nov 19, 2005 at 05:06:15PM +, Kurt Lieber wrote:
> Now, the same question for email -- how do we manage aliases, especially
> for inactive, retired and semi-retired arch testers?  We could track usage
> in logs, but between mailing list subscriptions, bugzilla notifications and
> all sorts of other automated emails, that's not an accurate representation
> of whether an email alias is actively used or not.

Isn't this an issue that also exists for the Gentoo developers in general?

Wkr,
  Sven Vermeulen


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[gentoo-dev] Departure of Broeman and Aaby

2005-11-09 Thread Sven Vermeulen
With a sad heart I must announce that Jesper "broeman" Brodersen and Arne
"aaby" Mejholm are leaving the Gentoo Documentation Team as the Danish
translation lead/follow-up. They have made the Danish translations quite
active (the /doc/da/ counts 109 translated documents) and I thank them for
that.

Time is no-one's friend, you'll always find that you can't find any spare
hours in your back pocket. 

I wish them the best and they're of course always welcome for a quick chat.

Wkr,
  Sven Vermeulen

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Getting Important Updates To Users

2005-11-04 Thread Sven Vermeulen
On Thu, Nov 03, 2005 at 08:34:21AM -0500, Nathan L. Adams wrote:
> Almost all of them publish 'errata'. That is why I suggest a single
> place for all technical info such as the recent apache upgrade:
> 
> http://errata.gentoo.org/
> 
> i.e. Upgrade/migration stuff would go there as opposed to 'fresh
> install' stuff (which belongs in the normal docs area).

I disagree. Upgrading documentation can be part of the normal docs area as
well.

Wkr,
  Sven Vermeulen

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Getting Important Updates To Users

2005-10-31 Thread Sven Vermeulen
On Sun, Oct 30, 2005 at 04:52:39PM +0100, Thierry Carrez wrote:
> The reason why the front page and the gentoo-announce ML (the two
> official media for Gentoo -> users information) are under-used is that
> approximately 5% of the developers know how to post to them. We should
> probably make them more open (with a moderation system to check
> message), then they will be used more.

But there is no such system available yet. It is a single commit that gets
transferred to the web site, no moderation possible. 

Doesn't mean that it shouldn't be done though.

Wkr,
  Sven Vermeulen

PS. If you want something posted in the current system, ping infra or mail
[EMAIL PROTECTED] or [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the news item and it should get 
posted.
I know, not the best track, but that's the current system.


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Re: [gentoo-dev] Council meeting Thursday October 13th

2005-10-12 Thread Sven Vermeulen
On Tue, Oct 11, 2005 at 05:10:28PM -0400, Chris Gianelloni wrote:
> > If the latter: hump the baselayout team.
> 
> What does baselayout have to do with this?

They're to blame for about everything.

Nah, my bad. Of course I meant those responsible for the profiles.

Wkr,
      Sven Vermeulen

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Council meeting Thursday October 13th

2005-10-11 Thread Sven Vermeulen
On Mon, Oct 10, 2005 at 09:00:57AM -0400, Chris Gianelloni wrote:
> I'd like to see the council fight it out over^W^W^W^Wdiscuss which
> logger should be the default.

*lol*

That gave me a good laugh. Oh well, anyway. What's "default"? As in
"recommended by the documentation"? Or "installed as dependency of
virtual/logger"?

If the former: hump the GDP.
If the latter: hump the baselayout team.

If both, try humping one of them at a time. Doing both just makes funny
pictures, but doesn't give much results.

Wkr,
  Sven Vermeulen

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo Classes, a possible new method of spreading information

2005-10-10 Thread Sven Vermeulen
On Sat, Oct 08, 2005 at 11:36:45AM -0600, Tres Melton wrote:
> I think that the best thing to do would be to put up a web page with
> some documentation or a topic outline and then schedule a Q&A on IRC and
> maybe in the forums too.  There are a lot of topics that aren't
> documented that well.  What we really need is to find what topics people
> are interested in learning more about.  

... and document those.

Welcome to the Gentoo Documentation Project.

Wkr,
  Sven Vermeulen

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Application server deployment eclass?

2005-10-02 Thread Sven Vermeulen
On Sun, Oct 02, 2005 at 03:07:23AM -0400, Dave Nebinger wrote:
> So how do I get my war file deployed?  Am I left to external tools such as ant
> to manage that for me?
> 
> How does such an entity fit within the portage world?

Each J2EE server has its own method for deploying j2ee archives. I don't
think it is easy to create one that supports them all (WebSphere, WebLogic,
Oracle's, TomCat/JBoss, ...).

And anyway, the idea behind such archives is that the deployment itself is
tweaked to the environment itself - there is no way for a "default works for
all" deployment method afaik.

I personally use a Java tool that uses the JMX possibilities of the J2EE
server (if it supports it) to deploy tools, but this is targetted on a
personal environment and mainly used to 
  1. provide a sort-of default method for deploying archives on the
 environment (which uses a single brand of J2EE servers anyway)
  2. automate the upgrading of archives to a new version

Wkr,
  Sven Vermeulen
  

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Re: [gentoo-dev] default logger

2005-09-28 Thread Sven Vermeulen
On Tue, Sep 27, 2005 at 11:57:26AM -0500, Brian Harring wrote:
> > Agreed.  It should be syslog-ng.  If nobody objects, I'll change it in
> > base/virtuals.
> 
> Objecting, obviously ;)
[...]
> I'd rather see reasons listed as to why syslog-ng is a superior 
> default for users who (most likely) don't care, then "we lack 
> /var/log/messages" :)

We've had metalog as the example log daemon in the Gentoo Handbook in the
past. Every time it was added, we got a nice bug about why metalog was a bad
default and syslog-ng should be used. 

I'm not on the I'net right now, but if you annotate the
[gentoo]/xml/htdocs/doc/en/handbook/hb-install-tools.xml file you'll see a
bunch of reasons over the past few changes.

Afaik, most architectures prefer syslog-ng.

Wkr,
  Sven Vermeulen

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Re: [gentoo-dev] FAQs for maintainer-wanted ebuilds

2005-09-14 Thread Sven Vermeulen
On Mon, Sep 12, 2005 at 05:55:42PM +0100, Ciaran McCreesh wrote:
> No. GuideXML URLs utterly suck. They're impossible to memorise and the
> second I changed anything every link would become invalid.

But at least the layout is consistent, the location is official, concurrent
development is possible and the resource is shared on multiple web nodes.

Not to mention that GuideXML URLs don't suck and are a lot easier to
remember. You just need to know the name of the document:
  http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/
whereas with dev.g.o URLs, you have
  http://dev.gentoo.org/~//

Wkr,
  Sven Vermeulen

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Re: [gentoo-dev] New Developer: Lukasz Damentko

2005-09-10 Thread Sven Vermeulen
On Fri, Sep 09, 2005 at 12:21:30AM +0200, Jan Kundrát wrote:
> 
> Is staking, poking out of the eyes and burning of hands considered a
> warm welcome? :-)
> 

Must have missed a few memo's. I thought only YoswinK was allowed to do
this.

Welcome on board, rane. 

      Sven Vermeulen

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Re: [gentoo-dev] tentative x86 arch team glep

2005-09-06 Thread Sven Vermeulen
On Sun, Sep 04, 2005 at 10:39:44PM +0100, Stuart Herbert wrote:
> At the moment, the only way for a package maintainer to mark a package
> stable is to mark it stable on a "real" arch.  Creating the "maintainer"
> arch solves this very problem.

Yes, but please don't call it the "maintainer" arch. This will confuse our
users and it'll be quite difficult to document. I would rather vote for a
MAINTENANCE keyword, like the following example:

  MAINTENANCE="~x86"  # Maintainer uses x86, package not deemed stable

This provides two (wanted) inputs: stability and maintenance architecture.

And it keeps backwards compatibility.

Wkr,
  Sven Vermeulen

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Devconference archives

2005-08-15 Thread Sven Vermeulen
On Mon, Aug 15, 2005 at 11:16:10AM +0200, Wernfried Haas wrote:
> That's very nice from IU for sure and especially if there are not many 
> (read: one) options to choose from the outcome is pretty obvious.
> However, i'm not sure what our Social Contract says about it. It seems 
> to deal with the operating system itself, but there seem to be no 
> implications about anything else. So in theory we could host the whole 
> www.gentoo.org stuff on IIS servers?

Sure. The contract tells our users that we will never depend on non-free
stuff, so the continuance of the distribution is guaranteed.

But Gentoo can surely use propriatary products. Whether or not we want to is
a different question. 

Wkr,
  Sven Vermeulen

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Food For Thought: Bugzilla Localization?

2005-08-03 Thread Sven Vermeulen
On Wed, Aug 03, 2005 at 04:17:38PM +0900, Chris White wrote:
> 1) Are there official gentoo i18n groups, and if so, do they have their own 
> bugzilla.  If so, maybe we can link to them from the non-bugzilla site, and 
> the people their can transition non-english bugs over to standard bugzilla.

Nope (to your first question). We don't have a real i18n crew yet. It might
be a good idea for form one; we do have good support for i18n generally
(package maintainers are using the LINGUAS and the documentation has
references to locales and such) but an expertise group can probably improve
the distribution (for instance by adding the necessary man-pages-${LANG}
ebuilds, etc.).

> 2) Can people be brought on board to localize bugzilla, as well as provide 
> translation of non-english bugs.

I'm not in favor of having a non-English official bugzilla. To much
resources to put in it; I'd rather use translation teams to continuously
keep translating interesting stuff, like documentation but also help with
the localisation of Portage if that ever comes this far.

Translating bugs is such a waist of resources...

Wkr,
  Sven Vermeulen

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