[kde-linux] KDEMultimedia move to GIT; ZQM for the 4.8 branch

[James Tyrer]

On 06/03/2012 05:34 AM, Kevin Krammer wrote:
> On Sunday, 2012-06-03, James Tyrer wrote:
>
>> I find that when I 'checkout':
>>
>>       origin/KDE/4.8
>>
>> for these modules that:
>>
>> juk
>> kmix
>> dragon
>>
>> will build.  But, the rest fail when running CMake.  After some
>> investigation, I find that the problem is that the CMake files have not
>> been changed.  This means that they still need the CMake files that are
>> in the base directory of KDEMultimedia as it was in SVN.
>>
>> It has been this way for several weeks.  Looking in from the outside, it
>> looks very odd that a developer hasn't found this.
>
> Looks like the transition is not completed properly yet.
> Does it work for master?

Yes.

> I.e. do you recon it is more a matter of backporting
> patches or of missing adjustments due to the changes?
>
It does not appear to be backporting.  The SVN appears to have been 
split up without writing new CMake files where needed.  And it can't be 
fixed by backporting the Master CMake files -- tried that.  The Master 
appears to have changes enough from the 4.8 branch that the two need 
different CMake files.

>> But, it is my
>> understanding that developers do not build a copy of the current release
>> branch -- not even the section that they are working on.
>
> Very unlikely. There is no way one could backport a patch if one cannot verify
> that it at least builds. Some teams additionally deploy a continuous
> integration system to build development and stable branch and run automated
> tests.
>
It should be that way, but from time to time there is a patch committed 
(that I would guess was a backport) that makes a module unbuildable and 
it stays that way for a while.  I always tried patches to make sure that 
they built before I posted them (Total Quality Management is better in 
the long run).  And, I have a one command script system to rebuild the 
whole thing and makes a report file showing whether or not each module 
built -- you can be lazy, have the machine do the work, and still have 
good quality control.

> In this case the application developers are most likely waiting for the people
> doing the SVN to GIT migration to have completed their work.
>
I could understand that, except that they removed the SVN which 
shouldn't have been done before the GIT was ready for prime time.

> Should I make an inquiry on their development list?
>
Somebody should probably tell them.  If this was a project what I was 
managing, I would have somebody that was doing test builds on a server 
somewhere and he would notify the relevant people if a build failed.

I have the training to be a professional, but due to disability, I am 
retired.  So, I hope that you can see why I get a bit frustrated by 
people that don't do things correctly -- this actually looks a bit 
sloppy -- but yet think that they know lots more than I do (about 
everything).

-- 
James Tyrer

Linux (mostly) From Scratch