[OpenIndiana-New-developers] #include <hello.h>

[Guido Berhoerster]

Hello Kevin,

* Kevin J. Woolley <kjw at javabunny.net> [2011-02-24 19:28]:
> Hello folks,
> 
> Thanks to the people who set up this list -- it's perfect for people
> like me who are in time zones that make it difficult to find the UK
> contingent on IRC (like UTC-8).
> 
> I'll introduce myself briefly, for those who have had the pleasure of
> avoiding me thus far.  :)  I'm a sysadmin by trade with developer
> leanings doing most of my $dayjob work on Linux.  I've got experience
> with C and C++ (to a lesser extent) as well as Perl, Python, Ruby,
> Tcl, and several other languages to lesser degrees.  I have experience
> building RPMs and writing specs from scratch, so hopefully pkgbuild
> won't be too huge a hurdle.  My main interest is packaging up-to-date
> versions of various bits of software and acting as a canary for
> integration issues -- if something explodes while I'm working with it
> I should be able to provide some useful knowledge to anyone who's
> trying to integrate it.
> 
> That being said, I'm willing to play requests, too -- if there are
> areas of documentation on build processes, etc. to be written or
> updated I'll give it my best shot.  The time I have to offer is
> probably around ten hours per week.
> 
> If someone knows of an up-to-date and complete tutorial where a common
> bit of software is packaged the way we need it, please let me know.
> If no such thing exists I'll try to put one together as I go along.

sounds great, RPM packaging skills will be very useful. We have
not yet started our own packaging project (OIAC) but if you're
interested in packing additional software for OI right now it
might make sense to integrate these packages into the
spec-files-extra (SFE) project. Some OI community members
have already gone that route and are e.g. working on Qt and
PostgreSQL 9 packages within the SFE project. We are currently
working on setting up an IPS repository with a selection of
useful SFE packages.
More information about the SFE project can be found here
http://pkgbuild.sourceforge.net/spec-files-extra/
Existing specfiles are here:
http://pkgbuild.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/pkgbuild/spec-files-extra/trunk/
Building SFE packages on OI is documented here:
http://wiki.openindiana.org/oi/Building+SFE+Packages
An open task here is to further automate builds on the OI
infrastructure, e.g. to create a jucr-like setup where package
updates automatically trigger a rebuild in a dedicated build
zone.
Basically you could contribute packages of software you use
yourself or which you find useful or which people ask for on the
mailinglist to SFE and we can then offer them through a new
pkg.oi.o/sfe-unsupported IPS repo. Some packaging gaps I see are
Postfix (experimental package is in SFE), Virtualbox, and
Open/Libreoffice although it might be a good idea to start with
something smaller first before tackling those.
Since you're already familiar with writing specfiles you could
also help out by mentoring new developers interested in
packaging, e.g. on this list or by offering a packagin lesson on
IRC or as a turorial on the wiki.
If any of this sounds interesting to you, please let me know and
I'll try to help you getting started.
-- 
Guido Berhoerster