Fwd: Roll call for porters of architectures in sid and testing (Status update)

Fwd: Roll call for porters of architectures in sid and testing (Status update)

[Florian Lohoff]

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Hi,

just a heads up that Mips and Mipsel are 2 architectures in danger
of beeing dropped by Debian if no one steps up as a porter beeing
reachable for addressing architecture specific bugs. 

No need to be DD 

Flo

----- Forwarded message from Niels Thykier <niels@thykier.net> -----

Date: Thu, 19 Sep 2013 10:38:29 +0200
From: Niels Thykier <niels@thykier.net>
To: debian-release@lists.debian.org
CC: debian-ports@lists.debian.org, debian-devel@lists.debian.org
Subject: Re: Roll call for porters of architectures in sid and testing (Status
	update)
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On 2013-09-01 09:33, Niels Thykier wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> As we announced in [LAST-BITS], we would like to get a better idea of
> that status of the ports, to make an informed decision about which
> port can be released with jessie. One of the steps is to get an
> overview of which of the porters are (still) active for each
> port. Once the results from the role-call are in, we will request
> other information about the status of the ports. In the meantime, feel
> free to update and collect info about the ports in the Debian wiki[WIKI].
> 
> If you are (or intend to become) an active porter for the lifetime of
> jessie, then please send a signed email explaining your involvement in
> the port to the Release Team <debian-release@lists.debian.org> before
> 1st of October 2013. Please explain the level of your involvement in
> the port.
> 
> Feel free to use the following template as your reply:
> 
> [...]
> 
> Niels, on behalf of the release team
> 
> [LAST-BITS] http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2013/08/msg00006.html
> 
> [WIKI] https://wiki.debian.org/ArchiveQualification/Jessie
> 


Hi all,

Here is a little status update on the mails we have received so far.
First off, thanks to all the porters who have already replied!

So far, the *no one* has stepped up to back the following architectures:

   hurd-i386
   ia64
   mips
   mipsel
   s390x

I have pinged some people and #d-hurd, so this will hopefully be amended
soon.  Remember that the *deadline is 1st of October*.

In the list above, I excluded:

  amd64 and i386: requirement for porters is waived
  s390: Being removed from testing during the Jessie cycle
        (Agreement made during the Wheezy release cycle)

The following table shows the porters for each architecture in
*unstable* that I have data on so far:

armel: Wookey (DD)
armhf: Jeremiah Foster (!DD, but NM?), Wookey (DD)
kfreebsd-amd64: Christoph Egger (DD), Axel Beckert (DD),
   Petr Salinger (!DD), Robert Millan (DD)
kfreebsd-i386: Christoph Egger (DD), Axel Beckert (DD),
   Petr Salinger (!DD), Robert Millan (DD)
powerpc: Geoff Levand (!DD), Roger Leigh (DD)
sparc: Axel Beckert (DD), Rainer Herbst (!DD)


If you are missing from this list above, then I have missed your email.
 Please follow up to this mail with a message-ID (or resend it,
whichever you prefer).

We also got a number of people interested in architectures not currently
in unstable.  These are:

  alpha: Bill MacAllister (!DD), Kieron Gillespie (!DD)
  arm64: Wookey (DD)
  parisc/hppa: Helge Deller (!DD)
  ppc64: Steven Gawroriski (!DD)
  sparc64: Steven Gawroriski (!DD), Kieron Gillespie (!DD)

This will hopefully teach me to remember to include the "in unstable"
restriction to the next "roll call".  :)  Anyhow, if you are working on
these architectures on debian-ports and saw a new name in the list
above, this might be an opportunity to recruit new people.


We also received a couple of emails from people who are not or did not
want to be porters at the moment.  However, they expressed an interest
in the architectures:

  David Kuehling: mipsel
    - debug arch-related issues
  Meelis Roos: ppc, sparc64 (parisc)
    - test and report bugs in upstream kernel
  Peter Green: armhf (possibly any-arm)
    - works on raspbian


In the template email included in the roll call, we included some tasks
that people might be doing.  These are the task people have said they
are doing for a given port.

  * test packages: armhf, kfreebsd-amd64 (x4), kfreebsd-i386 (x4),
     powerpc, sparc (x2)
  * fix toolchain issues: armhf, powerpc
  * triage arch-specific bugs: armhf, kfreebsd-amd64 (x3),
     kfreebsd-i386 (x3), powerpc, sparc (x2)
  * fix arch-related bugs: armhf, kfreebsd-amd64 (x3),
      kfreebsd-i386 (x3), powerpc
  * maintain buildds: armhf, kfreebsd-amd64, kfreebsd-i386

NB: I have manually translated some prose-text into the items above, so
something might have been lost (or gained) in that translation.

Some of the porters also added some new items.  I have included some of
these items below:

  + test d-i "when needed": powerpc (x2)
  + maintain arch-related pkgs: kfreebsd-amd64, kfreebsd-i386
  + maintain non-DSA porter box: kfreebsd-amd64
  + maintain production system of $arch: sparc/stable
  + can offer hardware access[1]: sparc (Axel Beckert)
  + eglibc issues: kfreebsd-amd64, kfreebsd-i386
  + maintain+test cross-toolchains for $arch: armel, armhf

~Niels

[1] Restrictions may apply.


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----- End forwarded message -----

-- 
Florian Lohoff                                                 f@zz.de

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Re: Fwd: Roll call for porters of architectures in sid and testing (Status update)

[Ralf Baechle]

On Thu, Sep 19, 2013 at 12:31:58PM +0200, Florian Lohoff wrote:

> just a heads up that Mips and Mipsel are 2 architectures in danger
> of beeing dropped by Debian if no one steps up as a porter beeing
> reachable for addressing architecture specific bugs. 

What components and packages are we talking about?  Are we talking about
a fulltime job for a small army of geeks or?

> No need to be DD 

Good, I don't do dungeons and dragons!

  Ralf

Re: Roll call for porters of architectures in sid and testing (Status update)

[Florian Lohoff]

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Hi,

On Thu, Sep 19, 2013 at 03:58:52PM +0200, Ralf Baechle wrote:
> On Thu, Sep 19, 2013 at 12:31:58PM +0200, Florian Lohoff wrote:
> 
> > just a heads up that Mips and Mipsel are 2 architectures in danger
> > of beeing dropped by Debian if no one steps up as a porter beeing
> > reachable for addressing architecture specific bugs. 
> 
> What components and packages are we talking about?  Are we talking about
> a fulltime job for a small army of geeks or?

Its about dealing with architecture specific problems. Looking after
ICEs, userspace asm stuff for debian packages where they break etc.

A typical Debian Developer wont know about the mips specifics and 
needs someone to adress stuff to if the build breaks for architecture
specific problems.

Debian has formalizes the release criterias for their architectures
concerning build architecture, availabibility of hardware and 
manpower to fix those problems. This is why there needs to be some
names on the list.

All the Debian architectures are depending on one another. So if a
gcc build fails for parisc the new gcc cant propagate to stable/testing.
So the release managers are keen on quickly fixing those bugs to not
hold up all architectures progressing.

Flo
-- 
Florian Lohoff                                                 f@zz.de

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Re: Roll call for porters of architectures in sid and testing (Status update)

[Ralf Baechle]

On Thu, Sep 19, 2013 at 04:10:06PM +0200, Florian Lohoff wrote:

> On Thu, Sep 19, 2013 at 03:58:52PM +0200, Ralf Baechle wrote:
> > On Thu, Sep 19, 2013 at 12:31:58PM +0200, Florian Lohoff wrote:
> > 
> > > just a heads up that Mips and Mipsel are 2 architectures in danger
> > > of beeing dropped by Debian if no one steps up as a porter beeing
> > > reachable for addressing architecture specific bugs. 
> > 
> > What components and packages are we talking about?  Are we talking about
> > a fulltime job for a small army of geeks or?
> 
> Its about dealing with architecture specific problems. Looking after
> ICEs, userspace asm stuff for debian packages where they break etc.
> 
> A typical Debian Developer wont know about the mips specifics and 
> needs someone to adress stuff to if the build breaks for architecture
> specific problems.
> 
> Debian has formalizes the release criterias for their architectures
> concerning build architecture, availabibility of hardware and 
> manpower to fix those problems. This is why there needs to be some
> names on the list.
> 
> All the Debian architectures are depending on one another. So if a
> gcc build fails for parisc the new gcc cant propagate to stable/testing.
> So the release managers are keen on quickly fixing those bugs to not
> hold up all architectures progressing.

Sounds like this is really a job for a number of specialists in various
fields.

You also mentioned the availability of hardware.  How's the situation
there wrt. to MIPS?

  Ralf

Re: Roll call for porters of architectures in sid and testing (Status update)

[Florian Lohoff]

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On Thu, Sep 19, 2013 at 04:54:51PM +0200, Ralf Baechle wrote:
> On Thu, Sep 19, 2013 at 04:10:06PM +0200, Florian Lohoff wrote:
> > On Thu, Sep 19, 2013 at 03:58:52PM +0200, Ralf Baechle wrote:
> > > On Thu, Sep 19, 2013 at 12:31:58PM +0200, Florian Lohoff wrote:
> > > 
> > > > just a heads up that Mips and Mipsel are 2 architectures in danger
> > > > of beeing dropped by Debian if no one steps up as a porter beeing
> > > > reachable for addressing architecture specific bugs. 
> > > 
> > > What components and packages are we talking about?  Are we talking about
> > > a fulltime job for a small army of geeks or?
> > 
> > Its about dealing with architecture specific problems. Looking after
> > ICEs, userspace asm stuff for debian packages where they break etc.
> > 
> > A typical Debian Developer wont know about the mips specifics and 
> > needs someone to adress stuff to if the build breaks for architecture
> > specific problems.
> > 
> > Debian has formalizes the release criterias for their architectures
> > concerning build architecture, availabibility of hardware and 
> > manpower to fix those problems. This is why there needs to be some
> > names on the list.
> > 
> > All the Debian architectures are depending on one another. So if a
> > gcc build fails for parisc the new gcc cant propagate to stable/testing.
> > So the release managers are keen on quickly fixing those bugs to not
> > hold up all architectures progressing.
> 
> Sounds like this is really a job for a number of specialists in various
> fields.
> 
> You also mentioned the availability of hardware.  How's the situation
> there wrt. to MIPS?

Its not about current availability but the possibility to buy new
hardware for whatever reason:

http://lwn.net/Articles/152600/

Flo
-- 
Florian Lohoff                                                 f@zz.de

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