GSoC 2013: Binaries Idea

[Marcelo Galvão Póvoa]

Hi,

I started writing my proposal for this project, but the MPAB system
status and required work are not yet very clear for me.

On Mon, Apr 15, 2013 at 9:29 AM, Joshua Root <jmr at macports.org> wrote:
> On 2013-4-14 19:33 , Clemens Lang wrote:
>>> - I didn't find much information about the current status of the
>>> binary building system, could someone elaborate on that? Specifically,
>>> which other tasks does this project expect besides those mentioned in
>>> the wiki?
>>
>> I'm not very familiar with the binary build system. Maybe somebody else
>> on this list has some insight into this?
>
> I guess that's my cue. Ask away and I'll do my best to answer any
> questions you have.
>
> As for what you could do with binaries, there are a few enhancements
> that could be made to the current MPAB system, but I don't know if they
> would constitute a reasonably big project for GSoC. The chroot thing
> mentioned on the wiki is (a) really hard given the way modern OS X
> works, and (b) a lot less relevant with sandboxing in the picture.
> Current trunk sandboxes a lot of stuff, but more can be done.
>

What do you mean by "more can be done"? These improvements would
accomplish what, exactly?

> There have been some other directions for binaries talked about on the
> lists. One is to make essentially a parallel binary-only distribution,
> built from the portfiles, that uses something like pkgng or rpm for
> delivery.
>
> Another idea, enabled by automatic builds, is to maintain a list of
> ports known to build and pass their test phase (if any) on each
> platform, and allow users to choose to only see those in the list for
> their platform. If what we have at the moment is analogous to Debian
> unstable, this would be like Debian testing. This could easily be
> extended to only make visible ports for which a binary archive is available.

Are there ports which are unstable or can't be built by MPAB for some reason?

Also, can I post my proposal draft now to get some feedback? I still
need to know if it contains a reasonable amount of work for a GSoC.

Thanks,
Marcelo


On Mon, Apr 15, 2013 at 9:29 AM, Joshua Root <jmr at macports.org> wrote:
> On 2013-4-14 19:33 , Clemens Lang wrote:
>>> - I didn't find much information about the current status of the
>>> binary building system, could someone elaborate on that? Specifically,
>>> which other tasks does this project expect besides those mentioned in
>>> the wiki?
>>
>> I'm not very familiar with the binary build system. Maybe somebody else
>> on this list has some insight into this?
>
> I guess that's my cue. Ask away and I'll do my best to answer any
> questions you have.
>
> As for what you could do with binaries, there are a few enhancements
> that could be made to the current MPAB system, but I don't know if they
> would constitute a reasonably big project for GSoC. The chroot thing
> mentioned on the wiki is (a) really hard given the way modern OS X
> works, and (b) a lot less relevant with sandboxing in the picture.
> Current trunk sandboxes a lot of stuff, but more can be done.
>
> There have been some other directions for binaries talked about on the
> lists. One is to make essentially a parallel binary-only distribution,
> built from the portfiles, that uses something like pkgng or rpm for
> delivery.
>
> Another idea, enabled by automatic builds, is to maintain a list of
> ports known to build and pass their test phase (if any) on each
> platform, and allow users to choose to only see those in the list for
> their platform. If what we have at the moment is analogous to Debian
> unstable, this would be like Debian testing. This could easily be
> extended to only make visible ports for which a binary archive is available.
>
> - Josh