Secure testing team - Sep 2007 - A case of large code duplication

Hi,

since version 2.18, gnome-games includes the whole code of all ggz
libraries, which makes 17 kloc of C. Until now, I have managed to patch
it so that it builds with Debian''s ggz packages instead.

However, version 2.20 includes more GNOME-specific changes, some of
which are API-incompatible and not interesting for GGZ''s upstream. I
can
see this included version deviate even more in the future just like it
happened for the embedded libneon in gnome-vfs.

It would require quite some work to keep both versions in sync, and
until now even trivial changes I have proposed like new translations
haven''t been integrated by the Debian ggz team, so I don''t
think there
is enough will to do that.

Unless there are objections on the security side, I will now build the
GGZ code in gnome-games. If you don''t want to provide security support
for two copies of GGZ, I guess we will have to deactivate GGZ support in
gnome-games instead.

Cheers,
-- 
 .''''`.
: :'' :      We are debian.org. Lower your prices, surrender your code.
`. `''       We will add your hardware and software distinctiveness to
  `-        our own. Resistance is futile.
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Hello,

Il Saturday 29 September 2007 02:39:57 Josselin Mouette ha
scritto:
> It would require quite some work to keep both versions in sync, and
> until now even trivial changes I have proposed like new translations
> haven''t been integrated by the Debian ggz team, so I
don''t think there
> is enough will to do that.
Talking from an upstream perspective (and therefore including gnome-games into 
the CC list):

We have recently added a script in GGZ SVN:
	trunk/playground/maintenance/diff-to-gnome.sh
Its output is available here:
	http://hq.ggzgamingzone.org/~josef/diff-to-gnome/
(Unfortunately this particular server seems to be unreachable right now,
I''ll
try to fix this or relocate the diff files.)

Most of the modifications proposed by the GNOME games developers already have 
been integrated into GGZ''s 0.0.14 maintenance branch upstream,
including the
translations. If there are API compatibilities, it might result from people 
not knowing that the libraries are in fact copies.

I agree that there shouldn''t be a duplicate effort of maintenance.
There is no
reason for the non-GUI GGZ libraries to be in GNOME SVN at all, and I suggest 
to remove them there upstream first and change the configure script to look 
for system-wide installations. I think the Gtk+ frontend library (libggzgtk) 
will then be the only remaining duplication, and we can focus our efforts on 
merging its changes in a meaningful way.

Now that gnome-games 2.20 is out, it is the right time to start the cleanup.

Josef

On Sat, Sep 29, 2007 at 08:18:13AM +0200, Josef Spillner
wrote:
>
> Il Saturday 29 September 2007 02:39:57 Josselin Mouette ha scritto:
> > It would require quite some work to keep both versions in sync, and
> > until now even trivial changes I have proposed like new translations
> > haven''t been integrated by the Debian ggz team, so I
don''t think there
> > is enough will to do that.
> 
> Talking from an upstream perspective (and therefore including gnome-games
into
> the CC list):
> 
> We have recently added a script in GGZ SVN:
> 	trunk/playground/maintenance/diff-to-gnome.sh
> Its output is available here:
> 	http://hq.ggzgamingzone.org/~josef/diff-to-gnome/
> (Unfortunately this particular server seems to be unreachable right now,
I''ll
> try to fix this or relocate the diff files.)
I''ve created a set of tidied up diffs at
http://www.ggzgamingzone.org/~oojah/diff/ I''ve stripped out all of the
changes like SVN $Id$ updates and where extra functionality has been
added to ggz since the gnome guys last updated from our svn (which was
the overwhelming majority of the differences) as well as removing the 
diffs where the changes have already been merged back into our trunk.

After removing all of those, the only thing I can see that remains to be
changed in the non-gui libraries is the LOCALEDIR definition in ggzcore 
which has been added by gnome games. I''ve not checked it yet, but it
should only be short while to verify and test that change.

That still leaves the ggz-gtk library which as Josselin mentioned
includes many more changes, but getting the non-gui libraries out should
go a long way to helping.
> Now that gnome-games 2.20 is out, it is the right time to start the
cleanup.
Agreed.

Cheers,

Roger

Le samedi 29 septembre 2007 ? 08:18 +0200, Josef Spillner a ?crit
:
> Most of the modifications proposed by the GNOME games developers already
have
> been integrated into GGZ''s 0.0.14 maintenance branch upstream,
including the
> translations. If there are API compatibilities, it might result from people
> not knowing that the libraries are in fact copies.
This is very good news. Please let me know when Debian packages have
been uploaded. I will then re-add the patches to use them instead of the
bundled version.
> I agree that there shouldn''t be a duplicate effort of maintenance.
There is no
> reason for the non-GUI GGZ libraries to be in GNOME SVN at all, and I
suggest
> to remove them there upstream first and change the configure script to look
> for system-wide installations. I think the Gtk+ frontend library
(libggzgtk)
> will then be the only remaining duplication, and we can focus our efforts
on
> merging its changes in a meaningful way.
Yes, it looks like it will be possible to remove soon all duplication
except for libggzgtk. The case of libggzgtk is more difficult, and will
require API improvements to be able to customize it, allowing to pass
callbacks overriding some internal methods.

-- 
 .''''`.           Josselin Mouette        /\./\
: :'' :           josselin.mouette at ens-lyon.org
`. `''                        joss at debian.org
  `-  Debian GNU/Linux -- The power of freedom
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> > Now that gnome-games 2.20 is out, it is the right time to start the
cleanup.
>
> Agreed.
Ok, so just so we''re clear from this massive list of CC''s,
who''s doing
what and what do we (Gnome Games maintainers) need to do to help clear
this up?