toolchain rock-up

[Jeff Fearn]

Hi, here is some feedback for people to chew on before the meeting.

Hopefully it will minimize time spent on points that are already know, get people to think of some other questions to ask, and help people gather relevant information where required.

Karsten 'quaid' Wade wrote:
> We've been talking about rocking up our toolchain by integrating
> Publican[1].  We need to set up some tests to be able to confirm if the
> tool does what we need, technically, socially, and communally.
> 
> Please add yours to the list below, then we can throw it in a wiki page
> to start working against.
> 
> = Technical =
> 
> * Does it fulfill all the current tool's capabilities?
>   - These need to be defined and listed as specific tests

You need to know which of those capabilities are must haves and which are niceties.

> * Is it built on sound technology with a future?

The current system is tightly bound to CVS ... please, let CVS die quietly, it has earned its rest.

Publican uses standard Linux technologies and FOP. If anyone makes a better PDF generator than FOP it will get assessed by the publican team _immediately_!!111!

> * ...
> 
> = Social =
> 
> * Is there an active upstream?

Bugs against Publican have already being lodged and fixed in the Fedora Bugzilla.

> * Is upstream responsive to Fedora Docs?

See above.

> * Is the upstream work in the open?

Publican development is hosted on fedorahosted.org.

> * Can anyone (theoretically) join the upstream work?

Theoretically anyone with a FAS account can join the Publican team.

> * Is there a role Fedora Docs should take in the upstream?

What role does Fedora docs take in other upstream packages?


> * ...
> 
> = Communal =
> 
> * Is there a Fedora packager?

There is no packager for the current system.

Since publican is packaged in Fedora (8, 9 & devel) this question would seem to have an answer.

> * Is it maintained for EPEL as well?

You mean packaged. The current system is not packaged for EPEL.

Publican has been built in plague for EPEL 4 & 5, the packages are waiting to be pushed to the repos.

> * Do other parts of Fedora want to use this tool?

Which other parts of Fedora use the current tool?

Several Fedora projects, e.g. Fedora Directory Server & Fedora IPA etc, either already use publican or are having their documentation migrated to publican.

> * Is there value-add from Fedora Docs to make it worth promoting the
> integrated set (Fedora Docs + Publican)?
>
> * Does Fedora Docs want to create and maintain a "Content Producer
> Spin"?

Cheers, Jeff.

-- 
Jeff Fearn <jfearn at redhat.com>
Software Engineer
Engineering Operations
Red Hat, Inc