[fdo] Freedesktop sdk aka 'tiny base runtime' project

[Daniel Stone]

Hi Laurence,

On 27 October 2017 at 15:45, Laurence Urhegyi
<laurence.urhegyi at codethink.co.uk> wrote:
> So i wanted to kick off this mailing list by trying to round up a few things
> which have been discussed recently, at GUADEC, in f2f conversations
> afterwards, or shot over emails between a few people. It's been discussed
> for a while that we want to create a tiny base runtime with bst. The upshot
> is this will homogenize the metadata used in the build process for Flatpak,
> GNOME Continuous and eventually many other projects too, we hope.

Thiago's questions would be good to have an elaborated answer on. In
particular, whether BuildStream - which seems like it's only a few
months old - is a core part of the 'API' for the SDK, or whether it's
just incidentally used as part of the build process. I hadn't heard of
it until now, and would be curious to see if it's really used at all
outside of GNOME and Codethink.

> ## Objectives
>
> * Create and maintain a minimal base runtime using BuildStream definitions.

Same question as above: is the goal of the SDK to use BuildStream
definitions, or is BuildStream just something which happens to be a
part of it?

> * Establish neutrally located infrastructure to host the base runtime.
> * Implement an effective strategy for security updates to the runtime.
> * Ensure that the base runtime works with the relevant tooling in Flatpak
> and GNOME Continuous.
> * Replace flatpak builder with BuildStream to generate flatpak SDKs.
> * Replace Freedesktop Base Runtimes (based on YOCTO) with the base runtime.
> * Lastly, replace the GNOME Continuous (based on YOCTO) with the base
> runtime.

I'd ideally suggest establishing the goals of the SDK in terms of what
it's meant to provide to external users. That's something which is
actually compelling and useful: fd.o doesn't usually get involved in
projects whose sole goal is to _use_ a new build system.

> Some points on the above:
> * We're on gitlab.com for now as an interim solution before we migrate to
> freedesktop infra, or freedesktop migrates to gitlab.

For the record, I would very much like fd.o to migrate to GitLab.

> * Hardware will required at some point for the infrastructure.

What kind of hardware? Is that something you'd expect from fd.o, or
would you reuse, e.g. flathub and GNOME Continuous? Do you need
hosting, or build machines, or test runners, or ... ?
> ## Licence
>
> X / MIT
>
> No CLA to sign: All contributors hold their own copyright.

Is this just for the SDK - which I understand at this point to be a
bunch of build recipes and a conversion script from JSON/Yocto to
YAML/BuildStream - or are you talking about BuildStream itself?

> ## Code of Conduct
>
> We've discussed a simple but effective code of conduct, along the lines of:
> use common sense: don't abuse others and don't misbehave. When anyone does,
> folk should tell the mergers, who will be generally annoyed at the
> miscreants, and may take actions.

fd.o already has a Code of Conduct here, which we expect all new
projects to abide by:
https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/CodeOfConduct/

If you have any specific input or suggestions, these would be welcome.

Cheers,
Daniel