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* New Home for Xconq Project?
@ 2004-11-10 15:54 Eric McDonald
  2004-11-11  2:11 ` D. Cooper Stevenson
  2004-11-12 17:28 ` Stan Shebs
  0 siblings, 2 replies; 7+ messages in thread
From: Eric McDonald @ 2004-11-10 15:54 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: xconq7

Hello Xconquerors,

   Over the past few months I have had some discussions with various 
people about whether the Xconq project should be moved to a new host. 
Although I think that 'sources.redhat.com' has been a fairly decent 
host, there have been some issues with it:
   (1) The site has been down at least twice in the past year.
   (2) The overseers have been unresponsive to inquiries regarding 
access to the bug-tracking system.
   (3) The overseers have been unresponsive to inquiries regarding 
upload access to the FTP server for one of the developers who did not 
have such access.
   (4) It is a fairly low visibility location. Although the Cygwin and 
GCC projects have some association with the site, it is still not known 
as being dedicated host for other projects. One might argue that Xconq 
stands out more because it is among a relatively small couple of 
handfuls of projects, but I think that there are not enough projects on 
this site to attract much attention in the first place.
   (5) A site hosted by Redhat is not "neutral" ground. Even though the 
Debian folks have, in the past, made Debs for Xconq, there can still 
easily be an impression that Xconq is a special Redhat project and won't 
work elsewhere, or at least, not as well.
   (6) At least one developer has expressed a desire for a different 
bug-tracking system than the one provided (gnatsweb), even it was set up 
properly for developers to service it.

   That said, I am grateful to Redhat for hosting the project, and 
things like the mailing lists and CVS access have worked fine.

   I am not aware of any strong arguments for keeping the project at its 
current location. One could say that it is best to leave well enough 
alone; but, from my perspective, it is not "well enough". I would 
appreciate a serviceable bug-tracking system, and I would appreciate 
upload access to a FTP server for all active developers.

   Some of the suggestions for an alternative home have been Sourceforge 
and Savannah (which is hosted by the Free Software Foundation). I have 
looked into Savannah and it seems like it would get the job done. A 
number of people have been chomping at the bit to get Xconq moved to 
Sourceforge; I suppose I should investigate that more deeply in the near 
future.

   What I would like to know is: should Xconq move to a better site? If 
yes, then why? If not, then why not? Also what are the preferences for a 
new host site, and why?

   Stan, if you are reading this, I would be curious if moving to a new 
host is an action that you would approve of.

   Thanks,
     Eric

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 7+ messages in thread

* Re: New Home for Xconq Project?
  2004-11-10 15:54 New Home for Xconq Project? Eric McDonald
@ 2004-11-11  2:11 ` D. Cooper Stevenson
  2004-11-11  3:42   ` Elijah Meeks
  2004-11-12 17:28 ` Stan Shebs
  1 sibling, 1 reply; 7+ messages in thread
From: D. Cooper Stevenson @ 2004-11-11  2:11 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: xconq7

On Wednesday 10 November 2004 02:05, Eric McDonald wrote:
> Hello Xconquerors,

Hi, Eric!

>    Over the past few months I have had some discussions with various
> people about whether the Xconq project should be moved to a new host.

Yeah.

[snip]

>    Some of the suggestions for an alternative home have been Sourceforge
> and Savannah (which is hosted by the Free Software Foundation). I have
> looked into Savannah and it seems like it would get the job done. A
> number of people have been chomping at the bit to get Xconq moved to
> Sourceforge; I suppose I should investigate that more deeply in the near
> future.

In my view, moving the Xconq code trees to Savannah or SourceForge provides 
the following advantages:

   1) Higher visibility. When I look for an application to suit my needs I'll 
go to SourceForge and other high profile repositories to find it. The truth 
is that people subconsciously will partly choose a project partly based on 
how "together" the game's site looks.

  2) It gives we, the developers, the power to modify access permissions to 
the source trees 

  3) Better bug tracking/Support requests: this reduces the developer's 
workload trying to keep track of bugs and feature requests. May also serve as 
a documentation point for modifications (supplementing CVS documentation)

Note that I am not advocating SourceForge over Savannah, the key is to have a 
central development area where we have the capabilities listed above.

>
>    What I would like to know is: should Xconq move to a better site? If
> yes, then why? If not, then why not? Also what are the preferences for a
> new host site, and why?

I certainly think so. You know, when people search for "strategy game" at 
Savannah or SourceForge, Xconq ought to be right up there because it's just 
about the best thing going for this genre of software. Xconq has the 
"where-with-all" to play with the big boys and I believe it should.

>    Stan, if you are reading this, I would be curious if moving to a new
> host is an action that you would approve of.

Personally, I feel this really boils down to Stan's decision. He's the creator 
of Xconq. If Stan give the green light then okay. If not, then not. I respect 
his discretion. 


-Coop

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 7+ messages in thread

* Re: New Home for Xconq Project?
  2004-11-11  2:11 ` D. Cooper Stevenson
@ 2004-11-11  3:42   ` Elijah Meeks
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 7+ messages in thread
From: Elijah Meeks @ 2004-11-11  3:42 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: xconq7



> I certainly think so. You know, when people search
> for "strategy game" at 
> Savannah or SourceForge, Xconq ought to be right up
> there because it's just 
> about the best thing going for this genre of
> software. Xconq has the 
> "where-with-all" to play with the big boys and I
> believe it should.

This is true, and I think it's as much an indication
that we could use a higher profile as it is that
sf.net should do a better job of listing open-source
projects not hosted on their foundries.  Just a note,
but I had Cast Iron Life hosted on sf.net (The project
page is still there and I occasionally link to it at
http://castironlife.sf.net ) and it was one of the top
five projects for a few months and we never even got
out of alpha.  There's really no competition for XConq
and we may be able to absorb some of the other
projects into the XConq framework.  Higher visibility
= more eyeballs.






		
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Do you Yahoo!? 
Check out the new Yahoo! Front Page. 
www.yahoo.com 
 

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 7+ messages in thread

* Re: New Home for Xconq Project?
  2004-11-10 15:54 New Home for Xconq Project? Eric McDonald
  2004-11-11  2:11 ` D. Cooper Stevenson
@ 2004-11-12 17:28 ` Stan Shebs
  2004-11-12 17:37   ` Eric McDonald
  1 sibling, 1 reply; 7+ messages in thread
From: Stan Shebs @ 2004-11-12 17:28 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Eric McDonald; +Cc: xconq7

Eric McDonald wrote:

> Hello Xconquerors,
>
>   Over the past few months I have had some discussions with various 
> people about whether the Xconq project should be moved to a new host. 

It's certainly worth a serious look. The main advantage of the RH
sources site is that it's managed by professionals who immediately
have people all over them if things stop working; it's the same
machine as hosts GCC, and you can imagine the urgency when the GCC
sources are no longer available. Many sites with that level of
activity wish they only went down twice in a year!

That said, sources.redhat.com has not developed into the visible
site that many people originally imagined for it, and with the
turnover of people I don't think there are any Xconqers left at
Red Hat. So its retention is mostly out of inertia and maybe as a
little bit of a personal favor; not very good protection against
the next corporate shakeup.

I'm not really up-to-date on the alternate hosting options though.
Sourceforge was pretty abysmal when I tried to check out a project
some months ago; most cvs updates simply failed to complete and timed
out. Savannah used to have a problem with its admins disappearing
without telling anybody, dunno if that's gotten better. They also
tend to be more ideological about freeness, although I don't think
that's an issue for any part of Xconq.

Stan

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 7+ messages in thread

* Re: New Home for Xconq Project?
  2004-11-12 17:28 ` Stan Shebs
@ 2004-11-12 17:37   ` Eric McDonald
  2004-11-13  1:19     ` D. Cooper Stevenson
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 7+ messages in thread
From: Eric McDonald @ 2004-11-12 17:37 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Stan Shebs; +Cc: xconq7

Hi Stan,

Thanks for weighing in.

On Thu, 11 Nov 2004, Stan Shebs wrote:
> >   Over the past few months I have had some discussions with various 
> > people about whether the Xconq project should be moved to a new host. 
> 
> It's certainly worth a serious look. The main advantage of the RH
> sources site is that it's managed by professionals who immediately
> have people all over them if things stop working; it's the same
> machine as hosts GCC, and you can imagine the urgency when the GCC
> sources are no longer available. 

I seem to recall that one of the outages was for more than 10 
hours. Presumably this was hardware-related, but it raises 
questions about clustering, redundancy, and whatnot....

>Many sites with that level of
> activity wish they only went down twice in a year!

This is true.

> I'm not really up-to-date on the alternate hosting options though.
> Sourceforge was pretty abysmal when I tried to check out a project
> some months ago; most cvs updates simply failed to complete and timed
> out. 

Good to note.

>Savannah used to have a problem with its admins disappearing
> without telling anybody, dunno if that's gotten better. They also
> tend to be more ideological about freeness, although I don't think
> that's an issue for any part of Xconq.

Yeah. They also had a significant security breach back near the 
end of last year, IIRC. The only reason why I might favor them is 
that their set of tools is more familiar to me. Sourceforge (which 
I investigated a few nights ago) does things differently (which 
does not imply that their way is inferior): their trackers and 
file release system, to name a couple of examples.

However, Sourceforge is at least an order of magnitude larger 
than Savannah, I think.

I will see about putting my development branch of the Xconq 
sources on Sourceforge in the way of making a trial of it. If 
things go well, then we could move the Xconq mainline branch 
there at a later point, if we wanted to.

  Thanks,
    Eric

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 7+ messages in thread

* Re: New Home for Xconq Project?
  2004-11-12 17:37   ` Eric McDonald
@ 2004-11-13  1:19     ` D. Cooper Stevenson
  2004-11-13 22:52       ` Eric McDonald
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 7+ messages in thread
From: D. Cooper Stevenson @ 2004-11-13  1:19 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: xconq7; +Cc: Eric McDonald, Stan Shebs

What would happen if we went to SourceForge or Savannah for "eyballs" and 
pointed to the Xconq.org or RedHat site for a CVS backup?

It's trivial for me to mirror the xconq.org server with the source 
repository's server.

Obviously, this isn't an "automatic failover" solution but would it provide a 
good compromise?


-Coop

On Friday 12 November 2004 17:28, Eric McDonald wrote:
> Hi Stan,
>
> Thanks for weighing in.
>
> On Thu, 11 Nov 2004, Stan Shebs wrote:
> > >   Over the past few months I have had some discussions with various
> > > people about whether the Xconq project should be moved to a new host.
> >
> > It's certainly worth a serious look. The main advantage of the RH
> > sources site is that it's managed by professionals who immediately
> > have people all over them if things stop working; it's the same
> > machine as hosts GCC, and you can imagine the urgency when the GCC
> > sources are no longer available.
>
> I seem to recall that one of the outages was for more than 10
> hours. Presumably this was hardware-related, but it raises
> questions about clustering, redundancy, and whatnot....
>
> >Many sites with that level of
> > activity wish they only went down twice in a year!
>
> This is true.
>
> > I'm not really up-to-date on the alternate hosting options though.
> > Sourceforge was pretty abysmal when I tried to check out a project
> > some months ago; most cvs updates simply failed to complete and timed
> > out.
>
> Good to note.
>
> >Savannah used to have a problem with its admins disappearing
> > without telling anybody, dunno if that's gotten better. They also
> > tend to be more ideological about freeness, although I don't think
> > that's an issue for any part of Xconq.
>
> Yeah. They also had a significant security breach back near the
> end of last year, IIRC. The only reason why I might favor them is
> that their set of tools is more familiar to me. Sourceforge (which
> I investigated a few nights ago) does things differently (which
> does not imply that their way is inferior): their trackers and
> file release system, to name a couple of examples.
>
> However, Sourceforge is at least an order of magnitude larger
> than Savannah, I think.
>
> I will see about putting my development branch of the Xconq
> sources on Sourceforge in the way of making a trial of it. If
> things go well, then we could move the Xconq mainline branch
> there at a later point, if we wanted to.
>
>   Thanks,
>     Eric

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 7+ messages in thread

* Re: New Home for Xconq Project?
  2004-11-13  1:19     ` D. Cooper Stevenson
@ 2004-11-13 22:52       ` Eric McDonald
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 7+ messages in thread
From: Eric McDonald @ 2004-11-13 22:52 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: cstevens; +Cc: xconq7

Hi Coop,

D. Cooper Stevenson wrote:
> What would happen if we went to SourceForge or Savannah for "eyballs" and 
> pointed to the Xconq.org or RedHat site for a CVS backup?

I think that, in the case of Sourceforge, it would fit closer to their 
[Sourceforge's] philosophy if we, at least, made files available for 
download on their mirrors (via their File Release System). As far as CVS 
goes, I don't know. I think we should try their CVS server first. If it 
doesn't prove reliable, then we can use a CVS server elsewhere 
(xconq.org, perhaps).

> It's trivial for me to mirror the xconq.org server with the source 
> repository's server.

As long as it isn't against their policy and doesn't hog too much 
bandwidth, I think it would be good to have a CVS mirror. When we get to 
that point, I would say to go for it.

> Obviously, this isn't an "automatic failover" solution but would it provide a 
> good compromise?

Well, this gives redundancy from an end user standpoint. As a developer, 
if the main repository is inaccessible, then I am still stuck with 
waiting for it to come back before I can commit changes. Any changes 
committed to a "mirror repository" would have to be 
synchronized/committed to the main server later. Even if such a thing is 
a current technical possibility, it would seem that information 
pertaining to the original committer, original commit date, original 
commit messages, etc... would be lost.

   Regards,
     Eric

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 7+ messages in thread

end of thread, other threads:[~2004-11-13  1:19 UTC | newest]

Thread overview: 7+ messages (download: mbox.gz / follow: Atom feed)
-- links below jump to the message on this page --
2004-11-10 15:54 New Home for Xconq Project? Eric McDonald
2004-11-11  2:11 ` D. Cooper Stevenson
2004-11-11  3:42   ` Elijah Meeks
2004-11-12 17:28 ` Stan Shebs
2004-11-12 17:37   ` Eric McDonald
2004-11-13  1:19     ` D. Cooper Stevenson
2004-11-13 22:52       ` Eric McDonald

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