De: "Owen Taylor"
I'm embarrassed to admit that before I sent my mail I carefully
read over
... the old PackageDrafts/Go :-( My only excuse is that it was in my
browser history.
NP, that gave you some context on where Fedora is today.
Having actually read the relevant parts of "More Go
Packaging", the
explanation of compat packages and notification procedures does make the
intended operation clearer,
Thank you. Do not hesitate to improve the wording in the wiki, or post suggestions here,
if you have ideas on how to make it clearer, simpler or more efficient
though the social and technical barrier to a
packager new to Fedora will still be high if packaging their target package
requires creating a compat package and fixing multiple other packages.
Unfortunately, packaging something in Go is still going to be harder than packaging
software in another language in the near term :( I'd love to find more magic bullets.
I still worry that Fedora is not big enough to move the status-quo in
the
Go world - to get the point where Go programs require
github.com/foo/bar >=
.2.3 and actually have been tested with a multiple versions in that range,
not exactly the one vendored version shipped with the program.
That's a legitimate worry, yes. However given container and cloud people are massively
adopting Go, that critical cloud software is now mostly written in Go, I don't think
Fedora can afford to pass on Go and still stay relevant server-side. That's even more
true for Fedora downstreams and Fedora's main sponsor.
So I guess it all boils down to strategic choices for Fedora and Red Hat: invest in Go
packaging, even if it *is* painful, or pass, and lose relevance server-side in the near
future. Red Hat certainly has the assets, with Openshift and Coreos, to influence the Go
world in a Fedora-positive way. I don't know if it will choose, or manage, to leverage
them. It can not fail to notice the many Go projects that propose their software as Ubuntu
Docker images today. It can not fail to notice that Jakub and Jan, with all their
qualities, are a tad overworked and not really sufficient to pull Fedora Go forward the
required amount. The Go ecosystem has just grown too big. Lastly, I understand the
temptation to let Fedora and RHEL slip in favor of product lines more profitable in the
near term.
On my employer's side we *do* wish to stay relevant in a Cloud world. My Go
contributions are an attempt to partner with the Fedora Centos and RHEL communities on
that. If the partnership does not bear fruits, and Fedora/Centos/RHEL do not move in a
direction we can use, we'll have to invest elsewhere. I'd regret it but this
proposal and the spec dump that will follow are just too much work to do on one's free
time. And employer time requires results.
I haven't had time to read through the entire proposal, but it
certainly
looks like a major step forward!
Please finish reading it and propose all the fixes and comments and improvements you want!
Your experience is appreciated.
Regards,
--
Nicolas Mailhot