Minimization Objective report

[Adam Samalik]

This is the Minimization Objective [0] update.

Status: Discovery phase

== Regular meeting canceled ==

We have decided to cancel the regular Minimization Team Meeting [1] as we
prefer async discussions on #fedora-devel and devel(a)lists.fp.o. This makes
it more inclusive to people with other commitments or being in timezones
that prevent them attending the meeting at that specific time.

== systemd-sysusers vs. containers ==

We don't want Systemd in containers [2], but we recognise this is a
container-specific problem. So we're asking other groups — Containers SIG
and people working with OpenShift — for how they're approaching this
problem.

== Feedback Pipeline ==

Feedback Pipeline [3] is now automated, refreshing every day.

It also now includes sizes of individual packages in all reports, as well
as a timestamp.

== pcre -> pcre2 ==

Moving grep (one of the last packages using pcre) to pcre2. [4]

== How to get involved ==

See if there is anything interesting to you on action plan [42], or reach
out with something you think is useful but is missing there. Open a ticket
in the tracker [43] or discuss in #fedora-devel on IRC.

Cheers,
Adam


[0] Objective: https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/minimization/
[1] Meeting canceled: https://pagure.io/minimization/issue/14
[2] systemd-sysusers vs. containers: https://pagure.io/minimization/issue/13
[3] Feedback Pipeline: https://minimization.github.io/reports/
[4] switching grep to pcre2:
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1755491
[42] Action plan:
https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/minimization/action-plan/
[43] Issue tracker: https://pagure.io/minimization/issues

-- 

Adam Šamalík
---------------------------
Senior Software Engineer
Red Hat

[Matthew Miller]

On Wed, Sep 25, 2019 at 05:52:31PM +0200, Adam Samalik wrote:
>  == pcre -> pcre2 ==
>  Moving grep (one of the last packages using pcre) to pcre2. [4] 
Is this a perfectly drop-in compatible replacement from a user point of
view?


-- 
Matthew Miller
<mattdm(a)fedoraproject.org&gt;
Fedora Project Leader

[Igor Gnatenko]

On Wed, Sep 25, 2019 at 6:01 PM Adam Samalik <asamalik(a)redhat.com&gt; wrote:
>  This is the Minimization Objective [0] update.
>
>  Status: Discovery phase
>
>  == Regular meeting canceled ==
>
>  We have decided to cancel the regular Minimization Team Meeting [1] as we prefer async
> discussions on #fedora-devel and devel(a)lists.fp.o. This makes it more inclusive to people
> with other commitments or being in timezones that prevent them attending the meeting at
> that specific time.
>
>  == systemd-sysusers vs. containers ==
>
>  We don't want Systemd in containers [2], but we recognise this is a
> container-specific problem. So we're asking other groups — Containers SIG and people
> working with OpenShift — for how they're approaching this problem.
>
>  == Feedback Pipeline ==
>
>  Feedback Pipeline [3] is now automated, refreshing every day.
>
>  It also now includes sizes of individual packages in all reports, as well as a
> timestamp.
>
>  == pcre -> pcre2 ==
>
>  Moving grep (one of the last packages using pcre) to pcre2. [4] 
I'm curious if we should simply replace grep by ripgrep :)

> == How to get involved ==
>
> See if there is anything interesting to you on action plan [42], or reach
> out with something you think is useful but is missing there. Open a ticket
> in the tracker [43] or discuss in #fedora-devel on IRC.
>
> Cheers,
> Adam
>
>
> [0] Objective: https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/minimization/
> [1] Meeting canceled: https://pagure.io/minimization/issue/14
> [2] systemd-sysusers vs. containers: https://pagure.io/minimization/issue/13
> [3] Feedback Pipeline: https://minimization.github.io/reports/
> [4] switching grep to pcre2: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1755491
> [42] Action plan: https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/minimization/action-plan/
> [43] Issue tracker: https://pagure.io/minimization/issues
>
> --
>
> Adam Šamalík
> ---------------------------
> Senior Software Engineer
> Red Hat
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[Zbigniew Jędrzejewski-Szmek]

On Sat, Sep 28, 2019 at 08:47:03AM +0200, Igor Gnatenko wrote:
>  > == pcre -> pcre2 ==
>  >
>  > Moving grep (one of the last packages using pcre) to pcre2. [4]
>  
>  I'm curious if we should simply replace grep by ripgrep :) 
Crossed my mind too. But grep is 800k, ripgrep 4500k. In case of grep we use
the shared library of course, but we need that anyway. So if the goal
is to minimize images, changing the dep to a different lib is more attractive.

On Fri, Sep 27, 2019 at 04:06:54PM -0400, Matthew Miller wrote:
>  Is this a perfectly drop-in compatible replacement from a user point
> of
>  view? 
pcre is not actively maintained, and pcre2 is getting new features, but
the functionality supported by pcre should behave mostly the same.
See e.g. https://wiki.php.net/rfc/pcre2-migration for some discussion.

Zbyszek

[Petr Pisar]

On 2019-09-27, Matthew Miller <mattdm(a)fedoraproject.org&gt; wrote:
>  On Wed, Sep 25, 2019 at 05:52:31PM +0200, Adam Samalik wrote:
> > == pcre -> pcre2 ==
> > Moving grep (one of the last packages using pcre) to pcre2. [4]
>
>  Is this a perfectly drop-in compatible replacement from a user point of
>  view?
>  
The user that executes "grep -P"? Not many changes. Usually a corner
cases that have a different performance or exhibit bug fixes.

If you meant PCRE library users, then yes, there are many changes. If
you use only a basic part of the API, then porting to PCRE2 is easy. If
you use more advanced things like JIT, callouts, or custom memory
allocators, then the changes are so big the I don't recommend writing
a C macro spaghetti code to accommodate both APIs.

-- Petr

[James Cassell]

On Mon, Sep 30, 2019, at 9:16 AM, Petr Pisar wrote:
>  On 2019-09-27, Matthew Miller <mattdm(a)fedoraproject.org&gt;
> wrote:
>  > On Wed, Sep 25, 2019 at 05:52:31PM +0200, Adam Samalik wrote:
>  >> == pcre -> pcre2 ==
>  >> Moving grep (one of the last packages using pcre) to pcre2. [4]
>  >
>  > Is this a perfectly drop-in compatible replacement from a user point of
>  > view?
>  >
>  The user that executes "grep -P"? Not many changes. Usually a corner
>  cases that have a different performance or exhibit bug fixes.
>   
As a frequent user of `grep -P`, I'd like to know whether there is any loss of
functionality with the switch.

Otherwise, I'm a huge fan of the minimization objective; I hope to make it to the
(recently cancelled) meetings when they happen.

V/r,
James Cassell

[Matthew Miller]

On Mon, Sep 30, 2019 at 01:16:52PM -0000, Petr Pisar wrote:
>  > Is this a perfectly drop-in compatible replacement from a user
> point of
>  > view?
>  The user that executes "grep -P"? Not many changes. Usually a corner
>  cases that have a different performance or exhibit bug fixes. 
Yeah, that's the user I'm concerned with in this case, since _we're_ the one
switching the library. I'm imagining users with scripts written by a
sysadmin or grad student fifteen years ago which happen to use `grep -P`
suddenly and mysteriously doing the wrong thing.


-- 
Matthew Miller
<mattdm(a)fedoraproject.org&gt;
Fedora Project Leader

[Petr Pisar]

On 2019-09-30, James Cassell <fedoraproject(a)cyberpear.com&gt; wrote:
>  On Mon, Sep 30, 2019, at 9:16 AM, Petr Pisar wrote:
> > On 2019-09-27, Matthew Miller <mattdm(a)fedoraproject.org&gt; wrote:
> > > On Wed, Sep 25, 2019 at 05:52:31PM +0200, Adam Samalik wrote:
> > >> == pcre -> pcre2 ==
> > >> Moving grep (one of the last packages using pcre) to pcre2. [4]
> > >
> > > Is this a perfectly drop-in compatible replacement from a user point of
> > > view?
> > >
> > The user that executes "grep -P"? Not many changes. Usually a corner
> > cases that have a different performance or exhibit bug fixes.
> > 
>
>  As a frequent user of `grep -P`, I'd like to know whether there is any
>  loss of functionality with the switch.
>  
As far as I know there is no intended loss of funcionality. PCRE
test suite was enacted by the PCRE2 project. The same applies to the
code. PCRE2 code was refactored. Not written from scratch. Regressions
are fixed on the on-going basis. You can read PCRE2 NEWS file (or more
verbose ChangeLog file) if you are interested in the fixes.

-- Petr

[Peter Pentchev]

On Mon, Sep 30, 2019 at 02:58:54PM -0400, Matthew Miller wrote:
>  On Mon, Sep 30, 2019 at 01:16:52PM -0000, Petr Pisar wrote:
>  > > Is this a perfectly drop-in compatible replacement from a user point of
>  > > view?
>  > The user that executes "grep -P"? Not many changes. Usually a corner
>  > cases that have a different performance or exhibit bug fixes.
>  
>  Yeah, that's the user I'm concerned with in this case, since _we're_ the one
>  switching the library. I'm imagining users with scripts written by a
>  sysadmin or grad student fifteen years ago which happen to use `grep -P`
>  suddenly and mysteriously doing the wrong thing. 
Eh, seeing as the grep(1) manual page itself still declares the option
as experimental, I think people using it *should* be aware of the
possibility of slight changes in behavior.

G'luck,
PEter

-- 
Peter Pentchev  roam(a){ringlet.net,debian.org,FreeBSD.org} pp(a)storpool.com
PGP key:        http://people.FreeBSD.org/~roam/roam.key.asc
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