[haiku] Re: Package Manager:
- From: Ingo Weinhold <ingo_weinhold@xxxxxx>
- To: haiku@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 27 May 2012 15:11:41 +0200
On 2012-05-27 at 05:11:00 [+0200], Sean Collins <smc.collins@xxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
> Ingo Weinhold wrote:
> > On 2012-05-26 at 02:08:46 [+0200], Sean Collins <smc.collins@xxxxxxxxxxx>
> > wrote:
> >> Ingo Weinhold wrote:
> >>
> > I was referring to the contracts with Haiku, Inc., which IIRC have all
> > been
> > over an amount of hours of work, not real-time.
>
> I'm not sure I see the distinction here, I understand quoting a job
> based on the number of assumed hours to complete a given task. Are
> developers actually putting in estimates and then working over under
> those estimates ? I personally don't care either way. I was just curious
> if you could clarify this for us ?
All I was saying is that the contracts with Haiku, Inc. so far had been for
a fixed amount of working hours -- e.g. 160 h for Alexandre's current one --
so it doesn't matter how many hours per week or month one works (which can
vary depending on country and personal situation). In the end Haiku, Inc.
gets the number of hours paid for. Which is a reasonably fair for both sides
(the contractor takes all the risk, of course).
> > I can't really give you an actual estimate. It takes a few days to work
> > on an
> > estimate that is any better than "gut feeling". Not that it is any help,
> > but
> > my gut feeling says three or four months minimum, likely more.
>
> If your telling me it'd take you 3-4 months " I presume full time
> work" to finish package management,
Yes.
> to me that would indicate at least a
> few years to finish this feature if your doing it in hobby time. A few
> hours a week tops.
If you have a full time job, then that's probably the case.
> If that is truly the case, then it should be time to
> reconsider the requirement to have it as a mandatory feature for R1.
> Haiku cannot attract the level of funding needed to bring this feature
> to completion, without a larger user base imho. This posses a real
> quandary for those waiting for R1. For R1 maybe adopting the "fat
> binary" or Fat package/folder/etc would be more advisable.Push this
> feature to R2. Maybe with a bigger userbase, more software and more
> funding, it could be completed in your estimated timeline.
Moving PM to post R1 is certainly an option, though there are good reasons
for wanting to already have it in R1 (e.g. easy system upgrades). Anyway, I
don't think it looks quite as bleak. As I think I already mentioned earlier,
my current project ends in about half a year and I would be interested in a
contract working on PM then for a month or possibly two. I believe Oliver's
current project ends at about the same time and maybe he's interested, too.
Even, if not, assuming that Haiku, Inc. agrees to it, my contract would
still allow to take a significant chunk out of the remaining work.
Furthermore at some point the work becomes more accessible to other
developers. E.g. IIRC several people have expressed interest in working on
the graphical package manager. Once the Package Kit API is reasonably stable
and the command line package manager is working, that task can be tackled
without requiring deeper insight into the inner workings of the PM
architecture. Packaging the ported software (the vast majority of packages)
is something I am hoping the HaikuPorts folks will help out with.
To sum my point up, the remaining PM work is nothing that has to be done by
a single developer in his hobby time. Haiku, Inc. can fund full time
development and once PM has reached a certain point it becomes easier for
other developers to help out as well.
In the meantime another alpha release wouldn't harm BTW.
> I don't know
> if your including thorough debug time but I assume you are ?
This was really just a gut feeling based on the time invested so far and how
big the tasks before is seem to be. That's the kind of number you shouldn't
base any project management on.
> Ingo, how much money does the Haiku community need to raise to get
> you working ? I'm not saying slave wages, a real competitive wage ?
As already said, ATM I wouldn't feel comfortable with a "for real money"
contract.
CU, Ingo
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