GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 394163
Should vicious-extensions directory be a propset or a part of gdm2
Last modified: 2007-03-21 06:05:24 UTC
Please describe the problem: Doing a fresh svn checkout missing the add an extern folder (vicious-extensions) and the building process fails. Steps to reproduce: 1. 2. 3. Actual results: Expected results: Does this happen every time? Other information:
This issue is discussed here: http://mail.gnome.org/archives/gdm-list/2007-January/msg00001.html
Is there something new on this topic?
Not really. I sent an email to Ross Golder, and gnome-hackers and gdm-list on January 4th asking someone to fix this by moving the vicious-extensions module into the gdm2 module, but no action yet.
As an aside, have you considered just stripping the vicious-extensions from the code? Most of the functionality it provides has equivalents in glib now.
I agree. Bug 355425.
Meanwhile, here is a way to go (from gdm trunk dir) : svn propset svn:externals "vicious-extensions http://svn.gnome.org/svn/vicious-extensions/trunk" . and then commit, of course. You can always revert the externals property if some day the files are moved to the gdm module or stripped altogether. And don't forget to update the externals property (with svn propedit) when you branch or tag, so as to get in synch with the right version of vicious-extensions.
This appears to be fixed now (although I don't who fixed it and I don't see a changelog entry) $ svn propget svn:externals vicious-extensions http://svn.gnome.org/svn/vicious-extensions/trunk
Sorry I didn't add a ChangeLog entry, I didn't think it was needed since this wasn't really a code change. Yes I did add the above propset about a week ago. However, I am leaving this bug open for now because I think it probably makes more sense to get rid of the separate vicious-extensions module and just put the code in a subdirectory. I don't think any other modules use vicious-extensions. I'm interested in hearing what other people think of this. If people think it makes sense to just move vicious-extensions into gdm2, then I will go ahead and make that change.
It only seemed to be used in two other modules. [rossg@container CVSROOT]$ grep vicious modules gdm2 gdm2 ¯os &vicious-extensions pong pong ¯os &vicious-extensions grapevine grapevine ¯os &vicious-extensions As pong and grapevine are retired modules, there is a good case to move (well, copy) vicious-extensions into gdm2 and retire the vicious-extensions module. This should just be a simple 'svn add' operation (no sysadmin intervention reqd). However, once done, let 'svnmaster@gnome.org' know that the vicious-extensions module can be retired. Thanks.
I am agreeable to this change. Would you be willing to take care of this?
One question, though. What about people who want to build old tagged or branched versions of GDM. If we just copy the files and add them into GDM, won't we lose all branch information. Note that vicious-extensions is always branched and tagged with the same tag names used by GDM. This means that people won't be easily able to build older versions of GDM. This is sometimes necessary since GDM sometimes has security issues. For example CVE-2006-6105 caused me to have to re-release new versions of GDM with the fix back to GDM 2.8.0.8 last December. Note that this bug also happened to be in the vicious-extensions code. Since these sorts of fixes have to be released quickly, I'd hate to have problems figuring out how to get vicious-extensions to build with older tags or branches. While vicious-extensions doesn't often change a great deal, it has received some significant changes. Mainly due to the fact that a few releases ago we rewrote GDM to no longer depend on libgnome, which impacted vicious-extensions. Would it make more sense to ask svnmaster@gnome.org to move vicious-extensions into gdm to retain all tags? I think so, if this is possible. Or is there a SVN command that could be used to retain all the tag information? I realize this is more work, but I think it is important to retain the change history for these files.
I don't think it's possible to import the whole v-e module with tag/branch history intact into the gdm repository. You could add svn:externals to any tags/branches that may be required in the foreseeable future, but that would require leaving the v-e module in place for the foreseeable future too. However, if it were me, I'd just work out which tags/branches you're prepared to support going forward and svn add the relevant snapshots of v-e to those tags/branches (and trunk). For much older versions, we still have CVS available in anonymous/read-only state. Sorry, I'm not in a position to make any of these changes myself. I'm already way over-committed and really can't afford to get dragged into anything else atm. I prefer to leave it to individual package maintainers/teams to decide on and perform whatever actions they see fit.
Note that vicious-extensions is now removed from GDM 2.19 due to a rewrite (see bug #355425), so this issue is gone going forward. If it isn't possible to import the whole ve-module with tag/branch information intact into the GDM repository, then I'd prefer to leave vicious-extensions around in case I need to build older versions of GDM. I plan on continuing to support GDM 2.8 and later (though only for important security releated issues), so it would be too much of a headache to try and manage doing releases if vicious-extensions is lacking branch/tag information. I added a comment to the README and ChangeLog in vicious-extensions highlighting that the module is no longer used, but needs to be retained for this reason.