[Releasing] Testing: 08/22/2012 + linux-g++ [fail]

[lars.knoll at nokia.com]

On Aug 22, 2012, at 5:11 PM, ext Thiago Macieira <thiago.macieira at intel.com> wrote:

> On quarta-feira, 22 de agosto de 2012 14.44.31, lars.knoll at nokia.com wrote:
>> Well, Qt 4.8 wasn't split source neither. I know distributions don't like it
>> very much, but at the same time I don't think we should delay the beta
>> further because of this.
> 
> Qt 4.8 + Qt Mobility were split.
> 
> Qt 4.x didn't have components that were released in different cycles -- except 
> for one: QtWebKit. That has caused major headache to distributions, so it's 
> not an example to follow. In fact, it's showing what *not* to do.

Don't get me wrong. Split source packages should be a goal. 

On the other hand I am certain distributions could even live with a set of sha1's as a 'release'. The best way for them (ignoring the generated documentation at least) is to start from a snapshot of the git repositories.
> 
>> Split source packages also should lead to split binary package (aka an
>> online installer).
> 
> I don't see why. The binary installer can still gather all split sources and 
> build them.
> 
> For that matter, the binary builder doesn't have to use the split sources. The 
> monolithic sources we're producing, it can still use them.
> 
>> But in any case, I still don't see this as an absolute must have for 5.0. It
>> is certainly more important to get a release out then delaying another
>> month to implement split source packaging.
> 
> I disagree. It's pointless to release something that can't be properly built 
> by the people who will take our code to the most number of people.

It's absolutely not pointless. First of all there are the modular source repositories. I think our release announcement should also mention the sha1's for each of them. As said above that's probably a better basis for distributions to start with anyway. Building Qt from a git snapshot is not exactly difficult, and with Qt 5 this should fit the workflow of the distributions a lot better then what we had in Qt 4.x. So we do have an improvement here.

A typical spec file for a distribution should be rather simple for most modules outside of qtbase. basically it's about calling qmake, make, setting INSTALL_ROOT to the place you want all files to go into for packaging them up, calling make install and then tar'ing up the INSTALL_ROOT.

> 
>> The main problem implementing split source packages is documentation.
>> Currently this still requires a monolithic source package, and until we
>> have gotten that one modularised we simply can't do it.
> 
> Then we aren't ready for a beta. Call it alpha and let's continue doing 
> documentation modularisation.

No. Code wise we're very much there, and any further delay will hurt Qt more then this issue of no split source packages. As said above, I don't see why this should be a show stopper for distributions.

Believe me we're working on modularising the docs. But it's a rather difficult problem to solve properly.
Distributions could simply link to the online versions for now.

Cheers,
Lars

> 
> Alternatively, declare that documentation is broken in 5.0 beta and let's just 
> have a hack to build it now (by that, I mean whatever we're already doing, 
> namely, use the monolithic sources). 
> 
> We need then only to decide whether documentation in 5.0 final / release 
> candidate needs to be fixed.

> 
> -- 
> Thiago Macieira - thiago.macieira (AT) intel.com
>  Software Architect - Intel Open Source Technology Center
>     Intel Sweden AB - Registration Number: 556189-6027
>     Knarrarnäsgatan 15, 164 40 Kista, Stockholm, Sweden
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