post FOSDEM

[Dan Wierenga]

I suppose I should double-check my recipient list when I'm typing an  
email that I'm excited about....  Ah well.



On Feb 16, 2010, at 4:38 PM, Dan Wierenga <dwierenga at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi Max (noticably, not to the list),
>
> On Tue, Feb 16, 2010 at 3:15 PM, Max Kanat-Alexander
> <mkanat at bugzilla.org> wrote:
>>        Also, somebody would have to maintain this installer and  
>> promptly
>> update it every release, or it wouldn't be that useful. I suspect  
>> that
>> that person wouldn't be me, so we'd need somebody willing to dedicate
>> themselves to producing the installer every time we have a release.
>
> I think that's the wrong way to go about this, and IMO it's indicative
> of the entire thought process of the Bugzilla Project in regards to
> Windows.  It's fairly obvious that Windows is the red-headed stepchild
> platform.  Too little effort goes into making things work on Windows
> for it to be really, truly considered a "supported platform".
>
> A command-line script is The Way You Install Things on Linux, and you
> wouldn't ship a Linux release with a broken checksetup.pl.  Similarly,
> an installer package (.msi or .exe) is The Way You Install Things on
> Windows, and yet here you're talking about "promptly updating it every
> release".  In other words, there's a Bugzilla release, and then the
> installer would have to be nudged along.
>
> From my perspective, the release isn't RELEASABLE until the installer
> is done.  It's what the release manager is doing from the time the
> code base freezes in preparation for the release until the release
> actually happens.
>
> Yes, that means that the release management for a Windows build is a
> whole lot more complicated than just some command-line perl scripts.
> But that's the price of reaching the Windows audience;  you either
> support Windows and its relatively un-technical userbase, or you
> don't.  But you can't say "we support Windows" and then have a high
> failure rate on installation.  All it does is give Bugzilla some
> really bad press, because the Windows crowd doesn't think, "Bugzilla
> doesn't work on Windows", they think "Bugzilla doesn't work".
>
> I'd like to help on a Windows installer, I really would.  I sent you
> my thoughts on why I wasn't contributing to the community, and I saw
> your email thread on your research results.  You'll notice that thread
> was enough to keep me here on the mailing list  :) , but I'm still not
> *really* contributing.  A couple of things need to happen from the
> Bugzilla developers before I'd really want to devote any time to a
> Windows packager (and by "developers", I mean the real ones, not just
> the members of the mailing list; I guess for my purpose the list of
> code reviewers is "the real developers"):
>
> - A simple clarion call to the list(s) for some help in sprucing up
> the process of installing Bugzilla on Windows.  It's okay that none of
> the reviewers knows much about making things install gracefully on
> Windows; what's not okay is that you KNOW that, and you still haven't
> put out a call for help.
> - A commitment to a Windows installer, and the general treatment of a
> Windows installation as "just as important as another platform".   You
> can't make a release and then say the release is waiting for one
> person to create an installer.  (Just think of the Firefox Project.
> If they "released" Firefox 4 and said, "oh yeah, you can get the code
> from CVS, but the Windows installer isn't ready yet", the majority of
> the Internet would think "Firefox 4 isn't released", and the rest of
> the Internet would think the Firefox Project has a screw loose for
> even announcing it was.)
>
>
> Basically, the Bugzilla Project needs to show it *wants* to be part of
> the Windows community before the Windows community can be expected to
> want to be part of the Bugzilla community.
>
> -Dan