[rdo-list] TripleO UI Packaging Strategy

[Haïkel]

2016-07-19 16:53 GMT+02:00 Honza Pokorny <hpokorny at redhat.com>:
> On 2016-07-19 16:29, Haďkel wrote:
>> 2016-07-19 16:08 GMT+02:00 Florian Fuchs <flfuchs at redhat.com>:
>> >
>> >
>> > So a couple of questions, assuming/suggesting the following workflow:
>> >
>> >
>> > 1. In a first step, we make sure the build tools and dependencies exist as
>> > node modules on the build system, so it can compile the target JS files from
>> > it. We make sure all dependencies have compatible licenses.
>> >
>> > 2. On each new tripleo-ui release, the build system compiles new target JS
>> > files using the dependencies from step 1.
>> >
>> > 3. The build system adds the compiled files to the new package (which is
>> > otherwise based on the tripleo-ui distgit repo).
>> >
>> >
>> > Questions:
>> >
>> > - Is this workflow plausible/acceptable/feasible?
>> >
>>
>> Yes, though I'm not sure what you understand as build system.
>> Build system has no internet access, and except baseOS, only things
>> available are provided sources + dependencies declared as
>> BuildRequires (must be packaged)
>
> I guess this is the biggest problem: our build system is responsible for
> both fetching any dependencies and for actually building the project.
> Preferably, we'd like to run "npm install" from the RPM spec.  This step
> requires internet access, and therefore violates one of the rules. Since
> our dependencies are fixed/pinned, there is a fair degree of certainty
> that the dependencies will be the same each time the build is run[1].
> Npm install brings in sources, not artifacts.
>

There's an ongoing work to integrate language "native" packages with
RPM ecosystem (so-called modularity workgroup in Fedora)
In the future, build system will have access to an internal npm
registry mirror (and pypi  for python, etc.), but that's still an
ongoing work and there are many issues to solve (notably
reproducibility).

For now, we either have to package dependencies or bundle them. Our
build and delivery infrastructure is provided by CentOS, these are not
constraints that we can bypass, nor we can maintain on our own.

The landscape of software engineering was very different when
GNU/Linux packaging and distributions were created, and it'll take
time to adapt to modern software engineering (for the better or the
worst)

> What would be your preferred solution?  Should we try and use xstatic?
> We could also bundle our dependencies along with the source tarball ---
> would that ease your mind?
>

xstatic would be nice but I'd prefer that you check with our horizon
developers, first. They have more experience on that topic, especially
Mattias who also maintained horizon packaging.
Yes, direct dependencies can be bundled, we can tolerate minification
toolchain (provided it complies with our licensing terms) bundling but
that'd be temporary exception.

> [1]: Yes, I know about the leftpad fiasco :)
>
>>
>> > - If it is, would that flow be good acceptable for now only, or even
>> >  permanently, given that all sources are free software and the build is
>> >  transparent and reproducible?
>> >
>>
>> That's the stable state we want to reach.
>> Depending the amount of work needed, we may tolerate temporary
>> exceptions, but they have to be approved by RDO maintainers in our
>> weekly meeting.
>>
>> > - Would version changes for dependencies have to be reviewed separately or
>> >  could they be updated with each new build based on the version information
>> >  in the upstream repo's package.json file?
>> >
>>
>> Process is:
>> * initial review when you introduce new package (except if it's
>> packaged in Fedora as they have exemption from legal team)
>> * update bumps are done directly without peer reviewing (well release
>> wranglers and CI are checking sanity)
>>
>> > - Could steps 1. and 2. be combined, so tools and dependencies are updated
>> >  and installed on each new release? (Assuming dependency changes are
>> >  reviewed beforehand.)
>> >
>> >
>> > Thanks for clarifying!
>> > Florian
>> >
>>
>> Up to a certain extent, while we tolerate bundling web assets, I
>> prefer that we don't bundle the toolchain and try to keep it stable.
>> Not that we'd enforce strict constraints on that, but remember that we
>> have limited ressources to maintain the whole distribution.
>>
>> Regards,
>> H.
>>
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