Re: Octave Forge -- Looking for a new leader

[Julien Bect]

Le 08/01/2017 à 16:23, c. a écrit :
> On 8 Jan 2017, at 16:09, Nir Krakauer <address@hidden> wrote:
>
> > Sure, we just need to have the needed permissions and a specification of the 
> > process (on the Wiki).
> Or, we let each package maintainer distribute the package where they wish and 
> just maintain a list of links on octave.org.
> that way we can get rid of all (or 99.999% al least) of the OF maintainance 
> burden for good ...

My opinion about the first option (letting each maintainer do the 
release process) : why not, but...

1) This means giving write access to both the FRS and the web site to 
*all* package maintainers.  But don't we want to give this permission 
only to people that have proved themselves trustworthy in some sense?

2) Unless we develop a comprehensive set of tools to check for formal 
correctness (tarball structure, presence of all mandatory files, 
reproducibility of build, etc.), this means again putting a lot of trust 
in *all* package maintainers (to do that themselves "manually", 
following some "process" on the wiki).



My opinion about the second option (transforming OF into a collection of 
externally hosted repos and/or tarballs) : this would be very drastic 
change of philosophy, and...

1) It only partially solves the problem, since the release of a package 
means updating the web site both to let it point at the new release 
(unless we define a standard way to find it on the external site), and 
to update the documentation (unless we also stop distributing a 
documentation of the OF web site ?).

2) And again, I believe that it requires as above a comprehensive set of 
tools for automated checking of formal correctness (unless we accept the 
idea that OF is a collection of links without any garantee of quality ?).


This is just MHO anyway.

But, should this discussion continue for weeks until a decision is made 
and the necessary tools are developed, I think (as I said earlier) that 
the necessary permissions for handling releases should be given to a 
group of people that can get the job done, at least for some transition 
period.


@++
Julien