[sbopkg-users] Status of next sbopkg release

[Chess Griffin]

Howdy folks-

I thought I'd email the list to let folks know about the status of the 
next sbopkg release.

As some of you may recall, I 'retired' from sbopkg development a few 
years ago and since that time the project had been taken up by my 
original sbopkg co-developers slakmagik and Maurio Giachero.  I believe 
Mauro stopped using Slackware some time back but slakmagik has still 
been around and posted to this list as recently as this past July.  He's 
done a fantastic job keeping sbopkg updated and making releases 
alongside new Slackware versions.  Thank you, Slakmagik!  I've emailed 
him a couple of times over the last 3-4 months about a new sbopkg 
release but have not gotten a reply.  I'm hoping he'll see this post to 
the list and respond.

As it stands now, the current sbopkg package available on the sbopkg.org 
website (and on the Google Code site) won't work with 14.1 without some 
minor modifications to the configuration files (see below for how to get 
the current sbopkg package working with 14.1).  The source needs to be 
updated and a few minor issues posted in the Google Code issue tracker 
need to be addressed.

So, here are options I'm thinking about (input welcome):

1.  Staying with the current hosting and release system:  I don't know 
if I still have access to the cardinal server (where sbopkg.org is 
hosted) to update the website when a new package is ready.  I'll also 
need to figure out (or recreate) our release process.  We had scripted 
some things to update the ChangeLog and make the man pages and package 
it all up in a Slackware package and source tarball.  All of this will 
take some time.  December is my super-busy time at work plus we have the 
holidays and all that.

2.  Updating the Google Code svn with the 14.1 changes but not make a 
package: This would be trivial.  I have write access to the SVN repo so 
I can update sbopkg in the source tree so it works with 14.1 and just 
not worry about the updated package.  Let folks pull from SVN in other 
words.  I'll probably do this no matter what since it's easy to do.

3.  Moving the Google Code svn repo over to Github:  Similar to #2.  
I've slowly gotten accustomed to Git (way behind most of you, I'm sure) 
and perhaps it make sense to consolidate it there.  Part of me thinks 
that since sbopkg is just a shell script and some configuration files, 
we don't necessarily need a Slackware package ready to go, although I'm 
sure that it's easier for new users to install a package than pull from 
a git repo.  Still, it's fairly easy to tag a release on github and just 
let folks grab the tarball and manually put stuff in the right place.  
If I did this, someone could also submit a SlackBuild to SBo to build a 
package from a tagged release.  Github also makes it easy to host a 
webpage for sbopkg (which Willy and I do for the MSB project) and since 
I own the domain, I could point sbopkg.org to the github webpage.

As far as the future goes, unfortunately, I just don't have time to 
actively maintain and develop sbopkg.  I'm happy to keep it in the 
Google Code SVN repo or host it in a Github repo but in the event future 
bugfixes etc. are necessary, I won't be able to focus on them quickly 
and timely.  Perhaps someone could offer to step up and take over 
maintenance and development.  Perhaps folks have moved on to other tools 
and sbopkg is not needed anymore.  Anyway, the point being that it would 
be good to hear from folks on their thoughts on sbopkg, whether they 
still use it, whether they stopped using it for something else, etc.  
Perhaps this input will spur someone to offer to help take over 
maintenance and development.  I will note that according to the Google 
Code download page, the 0.36.0 package has been downloaded over 15,000 
times.

In the meantime, here is how to get the current sbopkg package (0.36.0) 
available on sbopkg.org working with Slackware 14.1:

First, copy and paste the 14.0 line in /etc/sbopkg/repos.d/40-sbo.repo 
and make it 14.1 like so:

# DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE. CHANGES WILL BE OVERWRITTEN. See the README.
# Repo Branch Description Tag Tool Link CheckGPG
SBo 14.1 "SBo repository for Slackware 14.1" _SBo rsync 
slackbuilds.org::slackbuilds/14.1 GPG
SBo 14.0 "SBo repository for Slackware 14.0" _SBo rsync 
slackbuilds.org::slackbuilds/14.0 GPG
SBo 13.37 "SBo repository for Slackware 13.37" _SBo rsync 
slackbuilds.org::slackbuilds/13.37 GPG
SBo 13.1 "SBo repository for Slackware 13.1" _SBo rsync 
slackbuilds.org::slackbuilds/13.1 GPG
SBo 13.0 "SBo repository for Slackware 13.0" _SBo rsync 
slackbuilds.org::slackbuilds/13.0 GPG
SBo 12.2 "SBo repository for Slackware 12.2" _SBo rsync 
slackbuilds.org::slackbuilds/12.2 GPG
SBo 12.1 "SBo repository for Slackware 12.1" _SBo rsync 
slackbuilds.org::slackbuilds/12.1 GPG
SBo 12.0 "SBo repository for Slackware 12.0" _SBo rsync 
slackbuilds.org::slackbuilds/12.0 GPG
SBo 11.0 "SBo repository for Slackware 11.0" _SBo rsync 
slackbuilds.org::slackbuilds/11.0 GPG

Second, edit /etc/sbopkg/sbopkg.conf and change REPO_BRANCH in line 34 
to 14.1:

REPO_BRANCH=${REPO_BRANCH:-14.1}

That's it!

I hope everyone is having a great end of year.  Thanks!


-- 
Chess Griffin