Open Source Meeting/2008-08-07

Open Source Meeting
== Agenda ==
# Quick update on cmake (again), quick report on building release (etc) branches with cmake (results from testing building outside Linden Labs), what works, whats broken etc. Michelle2 Zenovka 06:11, 7 August 2008 (PDT)
# Documentation updates: anybody done any more filling in/documentation thats worth mentioning? Michelle2 Zenovka 06:14, 7 August 2008 (PDT)
== Transcript ==
* [14:01] Carjay McGinnis: client-README-linux-viewer.txt or something
* [14:01] Michelle2 Zenovka: ah, you did use the linux libs package?
* [14:01] Harleen Gretzky: Hi Rob
* [14:01] Michelle2 Zenovka: i used the windows by mistake and this is the only difference
* [14:02] McCabe Maxsted: ahoy rob, JB
* [14:02] Harleen Gretzky: Hi JB
* [14:02] JB Kraft: hey folks :)
* [14:02] Michelle2 Zenovka: in only conatins some fonts and stuff now
* [14:02] Rob Linden: hi everyone!
* [14:02] Carjay McGinnis: hm, no, I downloaded the vivox runtime on its own
* [14:02] Carjay McGinnis: hello Rob
* [14:03] Michelle2 Zenovka: ah ok, cause i originaly had that file missing too and it turned up in the linux libs package
* [14:03] Carjay McGinnis: "client-readme-voice.txt", that's the name
* [14:03] Carjay McGinnis: ah, ok
* [14:03] Michelle2 Zenovka: yep
* [14:03] Harleen Gretzky: Hi Q
* [14:03] Harleen Gretzky: Rob - looks like jira-notify is borked, last message date: Thu Aug 7 09:18:27 PDT 2008
* [14:03] Q Linden: Hey, all
* [14:03] McCabe Maxsted: waves to Q
* [14:03] Carjay McGinnis: vivox used to be part of the Libs package
* [14:03] Harleen Gretzky: Hi Soft
* [14:03] Soft Linden: Hey hey hey!
* [14:03] Carjay McGinnis: probably somebody forgot to move it to the vivox runtime
* [14:03] Michelle2 Zenovka: yea i think now with the cmake download stuff its not
* [14:04] Carjay McGinnis: Hello Soft
* [14:04] Michelle2 Zenovka: actualy i didn't get a viavox at all
* [14:04] Carjay McGinnis: well, I simply touched the file and it worked
* [14:04] Carjay McGinnis: created the tar.bz2 and all is ok
* [14:04] Michelle2 Zenovka: cool
* [14:04] Rob Linden: Harleen, thanks for the heads up.
* [14:04] Carjay McGinnis: I already sent a mail to list to confirm it for Bill
* [14:04] Harleen Gretzky: np :)
* [14:05] Michelle2 Zenovka: Great, Bill had sent me direct, i will reply as well so it looks like 2.6.2 is a go
* [14:05] Rob Linden: Harleen: could you file something in jira about the problem if it doesn't resolve by tomorrow?
* [14:05] Soft Linden: I came in late - what's the problem?
* [14:06] Soft Linden: Can toss me a notecard so I don't hold us up
* [14:06] Carjay McGinnis: think JIRA-notify is down
* [14:06] Harleen Gretzky: sure thing, jira-notify is not sending any emails, your update at 9:18 was the last one
* [14:06] Rob Linden: Soft broke it :)
* [14:06] Harleen Gretzky: lol
* [14:06] Soft Linden: puffs his chest. "I beat JIRA."
* [14:07] Rob Linden: lol
* [14:07] McCabe Maxsted: hahaha
* [14:07] Rob Linden: alrighty....well, standard disclaimer. I'll be posting the transcript of this meeting to wiki.secondlife.com
* [14:08] Rob Linden: so...soft, say something horrible now
* [14:08] Rob Linden: no? ok
* [14:08] Squirrel Wood: hard disk failure!
* [14:08] Rob Linden: wel, first agenda item.
* [14:08] Rob Linden: cmake
* [14:08] Michelle2 Zenovka: yay
* [14:08] Rob Linden: Michelle2: floor is yours
* [14:08] Soft Linden: I'm pleased to announce OpenKitty, our new AWG group for Hello Kitty Interactive.
* [14:09] Michelle2 Zenovka: Bill has done us proud and 2.6.2-RC1 is on kitware and it builds completely now on linux too
* [14:09] Carjay McGinnis: o.O
* [14:09] Carjay McGinnis: OpenKitty?
* [14:09] Michelle2 Zenovka: I think myself and carjay have had quite a few private message with Bill over the last few weeks and his support has ben great
* [14:09] Rob Linden: (agenda for those keeping score: https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Open_Source_Meeting/Agenda )
* [14:09] Soft Linden: Yes. We've successfully completed the first Hello Kitty Interactive to icanhascheezeburger teleport. (Ignore this. This is me saying something horrible per Rob's request.)
* [14:10] Q Linden: anyone want a LOLipop?
* [14:10] McCabe Maxsted: waits for all the "invisible avatar" memes to pop up
* [14:10] Rob Linden: Bill ftw
* [14:10] Carjay McGinnis: lol
* [14:10] Carjay McGinnis: Rob was invisible for me until I zoomed in on him
* [14:10] Michelle2 Zenovka: so linux is buillding correct in cmake 2.4 and 2.6
* [14:11] Carjay McGinnis: (just saying)
* [14:11] McCabe Maxsted: a bunch of you are eggs for me :)
* [14:11] Rob Linden: I have speshal powerz
* [14:11] Michelle2 Zenovka: thinks whoosh as it all goes right over her head
* [14:11] Soft Linden: I shouldn't have stepped on that -- Bill's work is utterly great. That's gotten notice even outside the frequent open source Lindens.
* [14:11] Q Linden: +1
* [14:12] Michelle2 Zenovka: the only issues i am still seeing are the install.xml that soft is aware of and the dam fmod copy on windows
* [14:12] Soft Linden: Is there a meta JIRA for further cmake build wishlist items?
* [14:12] Michelle2 Zenovka: don't think so, think we mentioned this last time
* [14:12] Rob Linden: well, there's a wiki page, but you're right, there should be a jira
* [14:13] Michelle2 Zenovka: weve got at least 2 little faults so yea they need a jira
* [14:13] Soft Linden: Anyone have the wiki on hand? I'm searching
* [14:13] Michelle2 Zenovka: Which wiki page?
* [14:13] Rob Linden: https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/User:Rob_Linden/Build_Tool_Improvement_Spec_-_2008
* [14:13] Soft Linden: Thanks!
* [14:14] Rob Linden: it still needs love that I planed to get to before now, but still want to do before the week is over
* [14:14] Soft Linden: Well, I'll make the meta jira and create reciprocal links at least
* [14:14] Rob Linden: xlnt, thanks!
* [14:14] Carjay McGinnis: ah, right, it links to your page
* [14:15] Michelle2 Zenovka: Yea, ok i will create the appoprate JIRAs tomorrow at work
* [14:15] Michelle2 Zenovka: i love work its were i play with the viewer
* [14:15] Rob Linden: Ideally, we'd like the build instructions to be ridiculously simple
* [14:16] Michelle2 Zenovka: ack
* [14:16] Rob Linden: e.g. "run develop.py"
* [14:16] Michelle2 Zenovka: well it is on linux
* [14:16] Carjay McGinnis: and "make"
* [14:16] Rob Linden: oh, that
* [14:16] Carjay McGinnis: but it's more complicated for Windows
* [14:16] Michelle2 Zenovka: yes, the cygin stuff looks complex to an average windows user
* [14:17] Michelle2 Zenovka: many seem to have followed it though
* [14:17] Michelle2 Zenovka: you could skip some cygwin steps by supplying cygwin1.dll and flex and bison
* [14:18] Rob Linden: in addition to having things work well when everythign is set up right, it'd be good to make sure that really helpful errors are given
* [14:18] Q Linden: hmmm. would that be permissible by their license? (shipping flex/bison)
* [14:18] Michelle2 Zenovka: yea python errors still scare the hell out of me
* [14:18] Michelle2 Zenovka: Q: I don't know what there licence is
* [14:19] Rob Linden: I'm a little hesitant to get into the build tool distribution business, since keeping things up-to-date is kind of a pain
* [14:19] Soft Linden: Shipping our own cygwin.dll starts down a path of terror that many other projects have followed.
* [14:19] Carjay McGinnis: think the cygwin guys don't like that, I read a thread once in which they state the cygwin.dll should only be provided by cygwin itself since it can cause incompatibilities when mixed
* [14:19] Q Linden: Makes sense
* [14:19] Soft Linden: Multiple versions on one machine results in wild and hard-to-diagnose errors.
* [14:19] Soft Linden: Right
* [14:19] Michelle2 Zenovka: but i've also had loads of things that ship it too and as long as its kept private it is less of an issue
* [14:19] Q Linden: "DLL Hell" == Path of Terror
* [14:20] Soft Linden: I'd much rather - if it's missing - provide a little handholding text detailing how to install it
* [14:20] Michelle2 Zenovka: but yea, i can't see anything wrong with installing cygwin first, it gives you a sane shell to work from
* [14:20] Soft Linden: A link to a wiki page
* [14:20] Carjay McGinnis: I rather call it insane?
* [14:20] Michelle2 Zenovka: I think the cygin install could be a little more detailed, i will add some mote detials/screen shots to an addtional page
* [14:21] Carjay McGinnis: I had to hack quilt to work with it due to some weird line ending issues
* [14:21] Michelle2 Zenovka: ha
* [14:21] Carjay McGinnis: I don't like cygwin much but as long as it does the job ok, it's just very slow
* [14:21] Michelle2 Zenovka: i love it a whole lot more that a dos prompt ;-)
* [14:21] Carjay McGinnis: try running svn in a cygwin shell for example
* [14:22] Carjay McGinnis: yes, that's why i use the minGW MSYS package
* [14:22] Michelle2 Zenovka: yea i know what you mean
* [14:22] Q Linden: I like the idea of cygwin, but the implementation leaves me cold
* [14:22] Carjay McGinnis: anyway, all off topic :)
* [14:22] Carjay McGinnis: sorry
* [14:22] Michelle2 Zenovka: i can't actualy use a dos prompt any more
* [14:22] Soft Linden: The filesystem accessors cygwin uses were sped up a *lot* in Vista. So far, faster cygwin is the most attractive Vista feature in my book.
* [14:22] Rob Linden: I think if we can get a good spec worked up for what work needs to happen, I can push getting the spec implemented as a funded project (beyond normal developer iteration)
* [14:22] Rob Linden: No promises, but I think it can happen
* [14:22] Soft Linden: svn operations are just about as fast as OS X or Linux under Vista cygwin.
* [14:23] Carjay McGinnis: hm, nice
* [14:24] Rob Linden: So, the more that wiki page can look like a detailed formal statement of work, the more likely it wil be to happen
* [14:24] Soft Linden: I forget - has this been mentioned on-list as well?
* [14:24] Rob Linden: not yet, I was hoping to have a more credible first draft before raising it
* [14:25] Soft Linden: The cmake build instruction page could link to it too - catching what frustration people have with the process while it's fresh.
* [14:25] Rob Linden: the ball is in my court to get that first draft done, but certainly, any help with links to relevant jira tasks would be greatly appreciated
* [14:26] Michelle2 Zenovka: ok, will file the first issues tomorrow
* [14:26] Michelle2 Zenovka: i think my page is pretty accurate for the basic instructions as they curerntly stand
* [14:26] Rob Linden: that reminds me of something I want to cover if we have time: patch/project bundling
* [14:27] Michelle2 Zenovka: sounds interesting?
* [14:27] Rob Linden: I don't wat to cut in line unless you don't mind M2 (I think the next item was yours too)
* [14:28] Rob Linden: well, here, I'll cut. The idea is that there are themes that many patches fall under
* [14:28] Michelle2 Zenovka: I think your topic is more interesting the doc update was a bit of afiller
* [14:28] Rob Linden: for example, joystick support
* [14:28] Aimee Trescothick: 's ears perk up ;)
* [14:29] Michelle2 Zenovka: k
* [14:29] Rob Linden: https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-8465
* [14:29] Rob Linden: I recently went through the exercise of finding all of the joystick isues that have patches attached, and putting them under a spearate meta issue from the ones that don't
* [14:30] Rob Linden: the huge advantage of that is that we can conceivably sweep through the whole batch, and have a single QA pass for that area
* [14:30] Rob Linden: ..which is very likely how we'll tackle that batch of joystick patches
* [14:31] Michelle2 Zenovka: hmm, not quite sure how you work, but should there not be a dev filtering the good and bad and duplicate before passing to QA
* [14:31] JB Kraft: i have a few script editor patches in there that might fit under a meta too Rob... perhaps
* [14:31] Rob Linden: Michelle2: absolutely
* [14:31] Carjay McGinnis: hm, so one bad patch and the whole batch is rejected?
* [14:32] Aimee Trescothick: I think all the joystick ones were me, so they're conceivable all bad ;D maybe good if you're lucky
* [14:32] Michelle2 Zenovka: Carjay, sounds like batch account processing
* [14:32] Rob Linden: I skipped that step in my description, but there's a dev who does the filtering of good/bad.....it's not all automatic
* [14:32] Carjay McGinnis: ah, ok
* [14:32] Carjay McGinnis: the QA for the QA
* [14:32] Q Linden: carjay, hopefully the triage process plus the dev importing the patch should identify problems before it hits qa
* [14:33] Carjay McGinnis: ok, so QA can test all at once but the developer still has to go through each one
* [14:33] McCabe Maxsted: and a friend of mine recently had two patches rejected because another linden will be dupilicating the same work at some later date. Would be nice if we had more openness about what's being worked on in the UI department, and possibly specdific tasks (or meta issues) taht'd be good for patches to be attached to we could work on
* [14:33] Rob Linden: at any rate, the point is to make life easier on QA by making several tweaks in one area as part of one branch rather than nickel and diing them
* [14:33] Michelle2 Zenovka: Sounds good in principle, many patches probably need some sheparding and mine are just as guilty as probably needing more work/tidying
* [14:34] Q Linden: devs often have to write test plans, and it also saves dev time to write plans for several related issues at once
* [14:34] JB Kraft: MM +1
* [14:34] Rob Linden: btw, we are also trying to get better about providing feedback, and I hope you're seeing that already
* [14:34] Michelle2 Zenovka: test plan.. plug in.. turn on.. check for fire and smoke
* [14:35] Aimee Trescothick: very much so Rob
* [14:35] Rob Linden: McCabe, the best way to avoid that situation is to anounce on sldev that you plan to work on something before doing it
* [14:35] Michelle2 Zenovka: Yes i think communication is getting better
* [14:36] Michelle2 Zenovka: I have a couple of patches floating around though that i would like to know if they are useful or going to get re written by other changes
* [14:36] Rob Linden: Michelle2: which patches?
* [14:37] Michelle2 Zenovka: jiust looking up the numbers
* [14:37] Rob Linden: cool. anyway, the more shepherding and organization we can all work on , the more likely they'll get through the pipeline
* [14:38] Michelle2 Zenovka: VWR-5082_set_bulk_inv_permissions.dpatch
* VWR-4981_save_windlight_settings_in_user_rw_area.dpatch
* [14:38] Rob Linden: looks
* [14:38] Michelle2 Zenovka: oh and VWR-5917_multiple_user_day_cycles_in_rw_area.dpatch
* [14:39] Michelle2 Zenovka: 5082 is a builders godsernd
* [14:39] Michelle2 Zenovka: *godsend
* [14:39] McCabe Maxsted: nods. I've got a few patches I'm sitting on until more info comes out of LL. The UI development area seems especially vague though. It'd nice to have a look at what probles you're looking to solve and give us a chance to save you some work/contribute
* [14:40] Soft Linden: One of those is closed as a dupe internally - I'm noting on the one it duplicates that you have the patch available
* [14:40] Rob Linden: argh
* [14:41] Rob Linden: on VWR-5082, looks like we took a look at it in one of our internal patch triage meetings, which is good (means process sorta worked)
* [14:42] Rob Linden: ...but, it doesn't lend itself to a conversation
* [14:42] Rob Linden: ....since using our current roundrobin approach, we won't get to it again until October :-/ , other than out-of-band bugging us
* [14:42] Soft Linden: Rob: I'm assigning that one to the Rx triage user. Don't forget that their triage approach differs from other groups
* [14:43] Rob Linden: Soft: good point
* [14:43] Rob Linden: (an internal quirk that should get addressed soon)
* [14:43] Soft Linden: BIG nod. :p
* [14:44] McCabe Maxsted: dartboard, take a shot for every patch you hit?
* [14:44] Michelle2 Zenovka: It seems like patches are going stale and just being lost in the big picture
* [14:44] Q Linden: M2: getting better, I think...and working on it
* [14:45] Soft Linden: There are more people importing patches now than 6 weeks ago. It may take some time before that feels much different to contributors though. Still a lot of backlog.
* [14:45] Rob Linden: well, there's a new group that's spinning up in Linden Lab that should really help get through the backlog
* [14:45] McCabe Maxsted: nods. It was nice was to see some older much-wanted patches triaged lately
* [14:45] Harleen Gretzky: Like VWR-1484 is in 1.20 but LL does not seem to realize it
* [14:46] Rob Linden: looks
* [14:46] Aimee Trescothick: yeah, noticed that too lol
* [14:46] McCabe Maxsted: oh I thought that patch had been applied :/
* [14:47] Rob Linden: really....weird. was the patch there applied?
* [14:48] Aimee Trescothick: yes
* [14:48] Harleen Gretzky: Don't know if Gig's patch was put in, but it works in 1.20
* [14:48] McCabe Maxsted: his save image as is in the 1.21 nightly
* [14:49] Rob Linden: I'd like to make sure that we give credit where its due. if we (somewhat stupidly) developed an independent implementation, that's not as big a deal as if we take someones patch but don't give credit
* [14:50] Soft Linden: Still pretty sad though :/ That means a dev probably spent twice as long on that as they needed.
* [14:50] Rob Linden: yeah
* [14:50] McCabe Maxsted: yarr
* [14:51] Rob Linden: as an aside, one thing you can do to help your fellow contributor is to strongly encourage them to make a doc/contributors.txt edit as part of their patches
* [14:51] Michelle2 Zenovka: Think that should be wikied
* [14:52] Rob Linden: anyway, back on this topic....just so you know how we're going through the patch list
* [14:52] McCabe Maxsted: is there a speicfic apply/create patch wiki page?
* [14:52] Rob Linden: we're starting with the patches that haven'be been imported
* [14:52] Aimee Trescothick: I think it's on there, but maybe needs to be more obvious that it aids procedure more than just getting credit
* [14:52] Rob Linden: (which is usually only one or two a wek)
* [14:53] Rob Linden: ..then we go through the issues with no last triaged date on them
* [14:53] Rob Linden: (but with patch attached obviously)
* [14:53] Rob Linden: ...which is a backlog we're nearly all of the way through
* [14:54] Rob Linden: then we plan to go through in order of last triaged date
* [14:54] McCabe Maxsted: awesome, rob
* [14:54] Rob Linden: if there's an improvement to the procedure that facilitates better round trip discussions, please suggest it
* [14:55] Michelle2 Zenovka: How are you dealing with patches are you throwing them back to thr contributer or is a dev just takiing them as 95% there and making them pretty
* [14:55] Soft Linden: Some go back for refinement or are declined with an explanation, but most are getting imported.
* [14:56] Soft Linden: Pretty much every patch gets some cleanup or massaging to meet coding standards.
* [14:56] JB Kraft: always helpful to know why a patch is not acceptable as well
* [14:56] Michelle2 Zenovka: I would gess in many cases the principle is there but just lacks some finess that the dev can clean with additonal internal knoledge of whats happening
* [14:56] Carjay McGinnis: SLint? :)
* [14:56] Soft Linden: Yeah. The main thing we're trying to do now is add those comments isntead of letting stuff just sit ignored.
* [14:56] Rob Linden: yeah, we're endeavoring to provde that feedback
* [14:56] Soft Linden: I should hush. I'm duplicating Rob half the time here :)
* [14:57] Rob Linden: naw...I'm talking too mch
* [14:57] Rob Linden: and my keyboard keeps dropping letters. ptptptp
* [14:57] JB Kraft: definitely more dialog on the jira yes. its good :)
* [14:58] Michelle2 Zenovka: nods
* [14:58] Soft Linden: Rob's been the one driving the new triages. A lot of the devs got "too busy" to keep those up. Having the tasks sitting at the ready with all the other internally listed tasks is part of what's helped nudge more devs toward the patches.
* [14:58] Carjay McGinnis: indeed
* [14:58] Q Linden: has to run, but thanks, all
* [14:58] Michelle2 Zenovka: waves
* [14:58] Rob Linden: yeah, I"m about to time out as well
* [14:59] Rob Linden: well, this was a good conversation
* [14:59] Michelle2 Zenovka: Ack
* [14:59] JB Kraft: ive been in woreshark, dont say ack ;)
* [14:59] JB Kraft: wireshark that is
* [14:59] Michelle2 Zenovka: hows that goiing?
* [14:59] Carjay McGinnis: thanks :)
* [15:00] Michelle2 Zenovka: Thanks Rob, Soft
* [15:00] Rob Linden: alrighty.....thanks everyone
* [15:00] JB Kraft: awesome program. i gt a full conversation dumped to and transtaling that to some test cases
* [15:00] Aimee Trescothick: bye :)
* [15:00] Group: Going: to group
* [15:00] Harleen Gretzky: ttfn