Re: Splitting meta-oe?

[Martin Jansa <martin.jansa@gmail.com>]

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On Sun, Feb 19, 2017 at 07:31:03PM -0800, Richard Purdie wrote:
> On Fri, 2017-02-17 at 14:45 -0500, Philip Balister wrote:
> > And I'm with these gyus. Splitting the git repository doesn't solve
> > any underlying problems. The real problem from my point of view is
> > very few of use are actually paid to maintain the layers we maintain.
> > 
> > Employers want to pay things they profit from, and that is not paying
> > someone to maintain "core infrastructure".
> > 
> > Layer maintainers interests change over time, and you burn out
> > supporting people who get to do all the cool stuff with the layers
> > you maintain. In the end, you get all the crap and non of the glory.
> > Within this list, most people appreciate your work. Outside the
> > community, people completely underestimate the amount of work
> > required to keep the ecosystem running.
> > 
> > Yeah, add my name to the list of cranky people.
> 
> I do think this is a valid question that Ross asks and that whilst the
> first quick reaction is "no", its worth thinking about the pros/cons.
> 
> The pros to me would be about better test time on patches and in theory
> more specialist knowledge. This isn't to say Martin/Joe don't do a bad
> job but the size of meta-oe does mean there are limits.

If I continue to do the same "bitbake world" builds to test as many
layers as possible, then the test time will be exactly the same even if
we split meta-oe repository into 10 smaller repositories, probably a bit
longer for fetching all those small repos.

> The cons are more around finding suitable layer maintainers, which as
> we all know are hard to find.
> 
> I'd probably suggest that:
> 
> a) We need to encourage/empower more people to maintain layers

I think we lack people willing to contribute patches for recipes they
use, not people willing to merge them into corresponding repository.

> b) Having better infrastructure, tools and processes that help a) would
>    therefore be desirable.
> c) We need to be willing to separate out pieces for people to maintain
>    in such layers. It might not always work out but we should be 
>    willing to try.
> 
> As for the comments about core changes, I really do try hard not to
> make them in many ways. The ones we do make, I'd hope are for the right
> reasons.

Yes everybody agreed that RSS is good change and worth breaking unused
recipes.

> No easy answers but don't shoot Ross for asking what I think is a
> reasonable question.

I wasn't trying to shoot him, but I still don't see how more
repositories solve the issue of unused recipes and lack of people
contributing to fix those still in use somewhere.

And I still think it's easier to send a patch to fix something instead
of volunteering to be maintainer of the layer with the one recipe you're
interested in fixing to merge your fix yourself.

Cheers,

-- 
Martin 'JaMa' Jansa     jabber: Martin.Jansa@gmail.com

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