11 a.m.
I'd like to hear some thoughts on a project to document where all
Fedora's source is located and how someone could obtain it. The
thought is that while we make all of our source freely available to
anyone I don't think we are doing a good job of letting people know
where they can find it. While we might be meeting the letter of the
rules I think we can do better.
This would include ALL source: software, docs, art, etc.
Thoughts?
Eric
11:44 a.m.
On Mon, Jun 01, 2009 at 12:00:50PM -0400, Eric Christensen wrote:
I'd like to hear some thoughts on a project to document where
all
Fedora's source is located and how someone could obtain it. The
thought is that while we make all of our source freely available to
anyone I don't think we are doing a good job of letting people know
where they can find it. While we might be meeting the letter of the
rules I think we can do better.
This would include ALL source: software, docs, art, etc.
Thoughts?
There is information on this scattered widely around the wiki but
there's no doubt it's hard to find if you're approaching the question
from the standpoint of "How do I get source?" without knowing what
source, or why.
And by saying that, I am absolutely *not* saying that's a bad way to
ask the question! In fact, I think the *idea* of getting the source
is just so powerful that we should make it drop-dead simple even for
people who have no idea exactly why they want it. That idea, when you
combine it with the collaborative power of the community, is what
powers this entire project and indeed all of FOSS.
--
Paul W. Frields http://paul.frields.org/
gpg fingerprint: 3DA6 A0AC 6D58 FEC4 0233 5906 ACDB C937 BD11 3717
http://redhat.com/ - - - - http://pfrields.fedorapeople.org/
irc.freenode.net: stickster @ #fedora-docs, #fedora-devel, #fredlug
12:18 p.m.
On Jun 1, 2009, at 9:44 AM, Paul W. Frields wrote:
On Mon, Jun 01, 2009 at 12:00:50PM -0400, Eric Christensen wrote:
> I'd like to hear some thoughts on a project to document where all
> Fedora's source is located and how someone could obtain it. The
> thought is that while we make all of our source freely available to
> anyone I don't think we are doing a good job of letting people know
> where they can find it. While we might be meeting the letter of the
> rules I think we can do better.
>
> This would include ALL source: software, docs, art, etc.
>
> Thoughts?
There is information on this scattered widely around the wiki but
there's no doubt it's hard to find if you're approaching the question
from the standpoint of "How do I get source?" without knowing what
source, or why.
And by saying that, I am absolutely *not* saying that's a bad way to
ask the question! In fact, I think the *idea* of getting the source
is just so powerful that we should make it drop-dead simple even for
people who have no idea exactly why they want it. That idea, when you
combine it with the collaborative power of the community, is what
powers this entire project and indeed all of FOSS.
A month or so ago I joined and simply wanted to download and mess
around with some documentation sources to see what would happen. I
remember a total inability to find something to download, and jumped
around from CVS <-> SVN <-> GIT <-> WIKI so felt confused and lost. I
understand a restructuring is taking place but fwiw I gave up and
moved on to other shiny objects (not Fedora) because of this. However,
I'm back and am wanting to help newcomers like me get involved.
In summary: I think it's a good idea :)
Regards,
Philip
11:47 a.m.
On Mon, Jun 1, 2009 at 12:00 PM, Eric Christensen
<eric(a)christensenplace.us> wrote:
I'd like to hear some thoughts on a project to document where
all
Fedora's source is located and how someone could obtain it. The
thought is that while we make all of our source freely available to
anyone I don't think we are doing a good job of letting people know
where they can find it. While we might be meeting the letter of the
rules I think we can do better.
This would include ALL source: software, docs, art, etc.
Thoughts?
Eric
My gut level reaction for Documents is that there should be a section
in the document that details where/how to get the source. Perhaps the
same sections that talks about filing bugs against it.
11:53 a.m.
Eric Christensen wrote:
I'd like to hear some thoughts on a project to document where
all
Fedora's source is located and how someone could obtain it. The
thought is that while we make all of our source freely available to
anyone I don't think we are doing a good job of letting people know
where they can find it. While we might be meeting the letter of the
rules I think we can do better.
This would include ALL source: software, docs, art, etc.
Thoughts?
Eric
I guess I don't see the problem - the source RPMs are normally
available from the same mirrors as the binary RPMs. It is just a
matter of enabling the source repo (It is in the config, just
disabled.) and selecting the source RPM you want. This way, you get
the "virgin source" plus the patches that Fedora is using. The .spec
file normally has a pointer to the upstream web site as well, just
in case it isn't in the source package.
It has been a long time, but I sort of remember coming across
documentation covering this. (It may have been RedHat documentation
from before Fedora...)
Mike
--
I am not a number,
I am an individual with a unique number.
12:50 p.m.
On Mon, Jun 1, 2009 at 12:53, Mikkel L. Ellertson
<mikkel(a)infinity-ltd.com> wrote:
I guess I don't see the problem - the source RPMs are normally
available from the same mirrors as the binary RPMs. It is just a
matter of enabling the source repo (It is in the config, just
disabled.) and selecting the source RPM you want. This way, you get
the "virgin source" plus the patches that Fedora is using. The .spec
file normally has a pointer to the upstream web site as well, just
in case it isn't in the source package.
And that is one way of obtaining a version of the source. But how did
you know you could get the source from the repos? Is that were ALL
the source files?
It has been a long time, but I sort of remember coming across
documentation covering this. (It may have been RedHat documentation
from before Fedora...)
Mike
Eric
1:09 p.m.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Eric Christensen" <eric(a)christensenplace.us>
To: "For participants of the Documentation Project"
<fedora-docs-list(a)redhat.com>
Sent: Monday, June 01, 2009 1:50 PM
Subject: Re: New Project: HOWTO Freely Obtain Our Source
On Mon, Jun 1, 2009 at 12:53, Mikkel L. Ellertson
<mikkel(a)infinity-ltd.com> wrote:
> I guess I don't see the problem - the source RPMs are normally
> available from the same mirrors as the binary RPMs. It is just a
> matter of enabling the source repo (It is in the config, just
> disabled.) and selecting the source RPM you want. This way, you get
> the "virgin source" plus the patches that Fedora is using. The .spec
> file normally has a pointer to the upstream web site as well, just
> in case it isn't in the source package.
And that is one way of obtaining a version of the source. But how did
you know you could get the source from the repos? Is that were ALL
the source files?
While the repo is an obvious answer, it is really only interesting to
Fedorans. Sources in the repos are wrapped up in these mysterious "rpm"
files. Yeah, if you have any Linux you can use file-roller, but what if you
are coming from Windows? Those things might as well be encrypted.
Of course, lots of stuff is in git, and you can look freely with just a web
browser. But is everything? Other stuff is in CVS. How do you know?
--McD
> It has been a long time, but I sort of remember coming across
> documentation covering this. (It may have been RedHat documentation
> from before Fedora...)
>
> Mike
Eric
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fedora-docs-list(a)redhat.com
To unsubscribe:
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5:32 p.m.
John J. McDonough wrote:
While the repo is an obvious answer, it is really only interesting to
Fedorans. Sources in the repos are wrapped up in these mysterious "rpm"
files. Yeah, if you have any Linux you can use file-roller, but what if
you are coming from Windows? Those things might as well be encrypted.
If you are going to use anything besides the provided package
manager, you are going to have to do some learning. If you are going
to use an RPM based distribution, you will need to learn about RPMs.
Of course, lots of stuff is in git, and you can look freely with just
a
web browser. But is everything? Other stuff is in CVS. How do you know?
It would probably help to learn how to use the rpm command. You can
look at the output of "rpm -qi <package>" or "rpm -qpi <rpm
file>"
to find out all kinds of information, including the home page of the
package. From there, you have to hope the home page will tell you
how to access the source.
If you do not have any idea of the package name, you can use the rpm
-qf command to find the package name from an installed file.
[mikkel]$ rpm -qf /bin/bash
bash-3.2-30.fc10.i386
[mikkel]$ rpm -qi bash-3.2-30.fc10.i386
Name : bash Relocations: (not
relocatable)
Version : 3.2 Vendor: Fedora Project
Release : 30.fc10 Build Date: Mon 15 Dec
2008 05:06:43 AM CST
Install Date: Wed 07 Jan 2009 03:52:29 AM CST Build Host:
x86-3.fedora.phx.redhat.com
Group : System Environment/Shells Source RPM:
bash-3.2-30.fc10.src.rpm
Size : 5216703 License: GPLv2+
Signature : DSA/SHA1, Mon 15 Dec 2008 02:35:20 PM CST, Key ID
bf226fcc4ebfc273
Packager : Fedora Project
URL : http://www.gnu.org/software/bash
Summary : The GNU Bourne Again shell (bash) version 3.2
Description :
The GNU Bourne Again shell (Bash) is a shell or command language
interpreter that is compatible with the Bourne shell (sh). Bash
incorporates useful features from the Korn shell (ksh) and the C shell
(csh). Most sh scripts can be run by bash without modification. This
package (bash) contains bash version 3.2, which improves POSIX
compliance over previous versions.
Or you can do it all in one step:
[mikkel]$ rpm -qfi /bin/bash
Name : bash Relocations: (not
relocatable)
Version : 3.2 Vendor: Fedora Project
Release : 30.fc10 Build Date: Mon 15 Dec
2008 05:06:43 AM CST
Install Date: Wed 07 Jan 2009 03:52:29 AM CST Build Host:
x86-3.fedora.phx.redhat.com
Group : System Environment/Shells Source RPM:
bash-3.2-30.fc10.src.rpm
Size : 5216703 License: GPLv2+
Signature : DSA/SHA1, Mon 15 Dec 2008 02:35:20 PM CST, Key ID
bf226fcc4ebfc273
Packager : Fedora Project
URL : http://www.gnu.org/software/bash
Summary : The GNU Bourne Again shell (bash) version 3.2
Description :
The GNU Bourne Again shell (Bash) is a shell or command language
interpreter that is compatible with the Bourne shell (sh). Bash
incorporates useful features from the Korn shell (ksh) and the C shell
(csh). Most sh scripts can be run by bash without modification. This
package (bash) contains bash version 3.2, which improves POSIX
compliance over previous versions.
This will work on any RPM based distribution. If you want the
source, you would go to http://www.gnu.org/software/bash - if you
want the source RPM, you would look for "bash-3.2-30.fc10.src.rpm".
I hope this will let someone that is a better writter then I am
write directions for new users.
Mike
--
Old age and treachery ALWAYS beats Youth and Enthusiasm!
5:11 p.m.
Eric Christensen wrote:
On Mon, Jun 1, 2009 at 12:53, Mikkel L. Ellertson
<mikkel(a)infinity-ltd.com> wrote:
> I guess I don't see the problem - the source RPMs are normally
> available from the same mirrors as the binary RPMs. It is just a
> matter of enabling the source repo (It is in the config, just
> disabled.) and selecting the source RPM you want. This way, you get
> the "virgin source" plus the patches that Fedora is using. The .spec
> file normally has a pointer to the upstream web site as well, just
> in case it isn't in the source package.
And that is one way of obtaining a version of the source. But how did
you know you could get the source from the repos? Is that were ALL
the source files?
I don't really remember where the information came from any more. I
do know that a full mirror will have a SRPMS directory with the
source RPMs in it.
In order to have a binary RPM, you first need a source RPM. There
may be some exceptions in some of the extra repo's, but all the
"official" Fedora RPMs need to have a source RPM that they were
built from. It does get a bit complicated in that one source RPM may
generate more then one binary RPM. Also, some binary RPMs are not
really binaries, but things like header files needed for building
other programs.
By the specifications, the source RPM has to contain the source code
and packages to build the RPM. It can, and usually will, have
dependencies on other packages. These are normally the same
dependencies needed to build the package yourself from a tar file.
One other thing - if you look at the headers of a binary RPM, you
will usually find the URL of the upstream home site of the package.
(The headers have all kinds of interesting information.)
I believe most of this is covered in teh RPM documentation...
Mike
--
The best book on programming for the layman is "alice in wonderland";
but that's because it's the best book on anything for the layman.
5:26 p.m.
On Mon, 2009-06-01 at 17:11 -0500, Mikkel L. Ellertson wrote:
Eric Christensen wrote:
> On Mon, Jun 1, 2009 at 12:53, Mikkel L. Ellertson
> <mikkel(a)infinity-ltd.com> wrote:
>> I guess I don't see the problem - the source RPMs are normally
>> available from the same mirrors as the binary RPMs. It is just a
>> matter of enabling the source repo (It is in the config, just
>> disabled.) and selecting the source RPM you want. This way, you get
>> the "virgin source" plus the patches that Fedora is using. The .spec
>> file normally has a pointer to the upstream web site as well, just
>> in case it isn't in the source package.
>
> And that is one way of obtaining a version of the source. But how did
> you know you could get the source from the repos? Is that were ALL
> the source files?
>
I don't really remember where the information came from any more. I
do know that a full mirror will have a SRPMS directory with the
source RPMs in it.
In order to have a binary RPM, you first need a source RPM. There
may be some exceptions in some of the extra repo's, but all the
"official" Fedora RPMs need to have a source RPM that they were
built from. It does get a bit complicated in that one source RPM may
generate more then one binary RPM. Also, some binary RPMs are not
really binaries, but things like header files needed for building
other programs.
By the specifications, the source RPM has to contain the source code
and packages to build the RPM. It can, and usually will, have
dependencies on other packages. These are normally the same
dependencies needed to build the package yourself from a tar file.
One other thing - if you look at the headers of a binary RPM, you
will usually find the URL of the upstream home site of the package.
(The headers have all kinds of interesting information.)
I believe most of this is covered in teh RPM documentation...
Mike
But as someone pointed out, that source RPM isn't in an exceptionally
open format. AND I know that everything Fedora produces isn't in RPM
format.
Eric
6:32 p.m.
Eric Christensen wrote:
But as someone pointed out, that source RPM isn't in an exceptionally
open format. AND I know that everything Fedora produces isn't in RPM
format.
Eric
RPM isn't an open format as compared to what? It isn't a simple
format, but it is about as open as you can get. It is used by
multiple distributions, and is available for other systems besides
Linux. It is easy to access with the proper tools. For that matter,
you can install a source RPM just like you would install a binary
RPM. It will put the files in the default build tree for the user
doing the installation. You do not have to be root to install a
source RPM.
Now, as far as Fedora producing something that is not an RPM, I
would like to see an example of that. Some things are generated "on
the fly" by the scripts included in the RPM, but there is nothing
stopping you from looking at the scripts - even is a binary RPM.
There are some packages available from non-Fedora sites that will
compile modules when ever you install a new kernel, but these are
not produced by Fedora. You also have binary-only packages, but
again, these are not coming from Fedora.
Mike
--
Registered Linux User #16148 (http://counter.li.org/)
6:48 p.m.
On Mon, Jun 01, 2009 at 06:32:10PM -0500, Mikkel L. Ellertson wrote:
Eric Christensen wrote:
>
> But as someone pointed out, that source RPM isn't in an exceptionally
> open format. AND I know that everything Fedora produces isn't in RPM
> format.
>
> Eric
>
RPM isn't an open format as compared to what? It isn't a simple
format, but it is about as open as you can get. It is used by
multiple distributions, and is available for other systems besides
Linux. It is easy to access with the proper tools. For that matter,
you can install a source RPM just like you would install a binary
RPM. It will put the files in the default build tree for the user
doing the installation. You do not have to be root to install a
source RPM.
I think we should differentiate "open" in the sense of "documented,
transparently accessible by any tool" (which the RPM format is) from
"easy to understand for n00bs." (which it's not).
However, you can open an RPM with any number of easy tools, and it's
easy to document the fastest way to get RPM source:
1. Install yum-utils and rpm-build packages, or better yet the
"Fedora Packager" group to make things easy.
2. Run 'yumdownloader --source <package_name>'.[1]
3. Run 'rpm -ivh <filename.src.rpm'.
4. Run 'rpmbuild -bp ~/rpmbuild/SPECS/<package>.spec' to build the
source from the archive, applying patches and so forth.
5. Browse in ~/rpmbuild/BUILD/<package>-<version> to heart's desire.
Now, as far as Fedora producing something that is not an RPM, I
would like to see an example of that. Some things are generated "on
the fly" by the scripts included in the RPM, but there is nothing
stopping you from looking at the scripts - even is a binary RPM.
I think Eric was referring to our many hosted projects,
infrastructure, websites, artwork, and so forth, where source is
stored in some sort of source code control, but RPM packages are
indeed not produced or published.
Fedora produces a lot more than just the software packaged for your
distribution!
--
Paul W. Frields http://paul.frields.org/
gpg fingerprint: 3DA6 A0AC 6D58 FEC4 0233 5906 ACDB C937 BD11 3717
http://redhat.com/ - - - - http://pfrields.fedorapeople.org/
irc.freenode.net: stickster @ #fedora-docs, #fedora-devel, #fredlug
6:57 p.m.
On Mon, 2009-06-01 at 19:48 -0400, Paul W. Frields wrote:
On Mon, Jun 01, 2009 at 06:32:10PM -0500, Mikkel L. Ellertson wrote:
> Eric Christensen wrote:
> >
> > But as someone pointed out, that source RPM isn't in an exceptionally
> > open format. AND I know that everything Fedora produces isn't in RPM
> > format.
> >
> > Eric
> >
> RPM isn't an open format as compared to what? It isn't a simple
> format, but it is about as open as you can get. It is used by
> multiple distributions, and is available for other systems besides
> Linux. It is easy to access with the proper tools. For that matter,
> you can install a source RPM just like you would install a binary
> RPM. It will put the files in the default build tree for the user
> doing the installation. You do not have to be root to install a
> source RPM.
I think we should differentiate "open" in the sense of "documented,
transparently accessible by any tool" (which the RPM format is) from
"easy to understand for n00bs." (which it's not).
Yeah, I wasn't trying to suggest that RPMs aren't open, they just aren't
easily as understood as, say, the actual text from the CVS.
> Now, as far as Fedora producing something that is not an RPM, I
> would like to see an example of that. Some things are generated "on
> the fly" by the scripts included in the RPM, but there is nothing
> stopping you from looking at the scripts - even is a binary RPM.
I think Eric was referring to our many hosted projects,
infrastructure, websites, artwork, and so forth, where source is
stored in some sort of source code control, but RPM packages are
indeed not produced or published.
Yep, that's a large part of our missing openness.
Fedora produces a lot more than just the software packaged for your
distribution!
--
Paul W. Frields http://paul.frields.org/
gpg fingerprint: 3DA6 A0AC 6D58 FEC4 0233 5906 ACDB C937 BD11 3717
http://redhat.com/ - - - - http://pfrields.fedorapeople.org/
irc.freenode.net: stickster @ #fedora-docs, #fedora-devel, #fredlug
Eric
7:06 p.m.
On Mon, Jun 01, 2009 at 07:57:51PM -0400, Eric Christensen wrote:
On Mon, 2009-06-01 at 19:48 -0400, Paul W. Frields wrote:
> On Mon, Jun 01, 2009 at 06:32:10PM -0500, Mikkel L. Ellertson wrote:
> > Now, as far as Fedora producing something that is not an RPM, I
> > would like to see an example of that. Some things are generated "on
> > the fly" by the scripts included in the RPM, but there is nothing
> > stopping you from looking at the scripts - even is a binary RPM.
>
> I think Eric was referring to our many hosted projects,
> infrastructure, websites, artwork, and so forth, where source is
> stored in some sort of source code control, but RPM packages are
> indeed not produced or published.
Yep, that's a large part of our missing openness.
I have an idea -- let's use "comprehensibility" instead of
"openness"
here, lest we cause some consternation about what's open and what's
not. Everything we produce in Fedora is open, transparent, and
attainable by anyone. Whether the route to do that makes sense to
people new to the project, is quite another matter, one which we hope
to rectify.
--
Paul W. Frields http://paul.frields.org/
gpg fingerprint: 3DA6 A0AC 6D58 FEC4 0233 5906 ACDB C937 BD11 3717
http://redhat.com/ - - - - http://pfrields.fedorapeople.org/
irc.freenode.net: stickster @ #fedora-docs, #fedora-devel, #fredlug
8:40 a.m.
On Mon, Jun 1, 2009 at 20:06, Paul W. Frields <stickster(a)gmail.com> wrote:
On Mon, Jun 01, 2009 at 07:57:51PM -0400, Eric Christensen wrote:
> On Mon, 2009-06-01 at 19:48 -0400, Paul W. Frields wrote:
> > On Mon, Jun 01, 2009 at 06:32:10PM -0500, Mikkel L. Ellertson wrote:
> > > Now, as far as Fedora producing something that is not an RPM, I
> > > would like to see an example of that. Some things are generated "on
> > > the fly" by the scripts included in the RPM, but there is nothing
> > > stopping you from looking at the scripts - even is a binary RPM.
> >
> > I think Eric was referring to our many hosted projects,
> > infrastructure, websites, artwork, and so forth, where source is
> > stored in some sort of source code control, but RPM packages are
> > indeed not produced or published.
>
> Yep, that's a large part of our missing openness.
I have an idea -- let's use "comprehensibility" instead of
"openness"
here, lest we cause some consternation about what's open and what's
not. Everything we produce in Fedora is open, transparent, and
attainable by anyone. Whether the route to do that makes sense to
people new to the project, is quite another matter, one which we hope
to rectify.
--
Paul W. Frields http://paul.frields.org/
Yeah... I'm having vocabulary problems this week.
Eric
12:48 p.m.
I think this is a great idea. To do it well, though, we should also
include some information about why someone might be interested in
accessing the source (not a long-winded manifesto, but maybe a
paragraph or two of explanation and some real-life examples for a
range of expertise).
--
Ben Cotton
3:46 p.m.
On Mon, 2009-06-01 at 12:00 -0400, Eric Christensen wrote:
I'd like to hear some thoughts on a project to document where
all
Fedora's source is located and how someone could obtain it. The
thought is that while we make all of our source freely available to
anyone I don't think we are doing a good job of letting people know
where they can find it. While we might be meeting the letter of the
rules I think we can do better.
This would include ALL source: software, docs, art, etc.
Thoughts?
Eric
I've started a wiki[1] page where we can start populating locations for
the source code. Start populating the page with what you know and let's
see what we can come up with.
[1] https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Where%27s_the_source
--
Thanks,
Eric Christensen
Fedora Docs Project
Fedora Talk: 5102043 Phone: 919-424-0063 x 5102043
E-Mail/SIP Address: sparks(a)fedoraproject.org
IRC: Sparks on freenode.net
GPG Fingerprint: CA02 4ACA EB6C 1A76 F0D6 1127 7D04 D240 BD0C 14C1
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16 comments
7 participants
participants (7)
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Ben Cotton -
David Nalley -
Eric Christensen -
John J. McDonough -
Mikkel -
Paul W. Frields -
Philip Olson