Animé par Horacio Gonzalez - @LostInBrittany
avec la participation de :
- Antoine Sabot-Durand- @antoine_sd
- Erwan Rougeux - @ERougeux
- Florentin Dubois - @FlorentinDUBOIS

Épisode enregistré le 18 juillet 2024

👋 Venez discuter avec nous sur @clever_cloudFR pour nous dire ce que vous avez pensé de ce nouvel épisode.

➡️ Pour découvrir ou réécouter d’anciens épisodes c’est par ici !

Chapitrage et liens

00:00:16 : Introduction et présentation des participants

00:04:07 : Sujet: Plugin *.google.com dans chromium-based https://x.com/lcasdev/status/1810696257137959018?s=46&t=TTwUj4NwwFWNozryQD5j4Q

00:14:19 : Sujet: Open source et foundations Clever Cloud joins the Eclipse Foundation: https://stagingv6.cleverapps.io/blog/press/2024/07/10/clever-cloud-joins-the-eclipse-foundation/

00:26:10 : les grands groupes et le cloud DevOps Topologies : https://web.devopstopologies.com/ We are leaving the cloud

https://world.hey.com/dhh/why-we-re-leaving-the-cloud-654b47e0

Kubernetes Comic https://cloud.google.com/kubernetes-engine/kubernetes-comic

00:49:11 : HAProxy 3 !

https://www.haproxy.com/blog/announcing-haproxy-3-0 https://www.haproxy.com/blog/reviewing-every-new-feature-in-haproxy-3-0

Maglev https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/research.google.com/en//pubs/archive/44824.pdf

https://engineering.fb.com/2018/05/22/open-source/open-sourcing-katran-a-scalable-network-load-balancer/

https://blog.cloudflare.com/high-availability-load-balancers-with-maglev

https://github.blog/2018-08-08-glb-director-open-source-load-balancer/ https://github.com/openelb/openelb

00:54:17 : Manifold: Digital Asset Management

3D DAM : https://manyfold.app/

Supported by France 2030, this project aims to guarantee the control and strategic independence of companies through sovereign and open source cloud solutions. The project is also committed to promoting a transparent and reversible business model, known as "open service".

Hyper Open X consortium companies: Abilian, Ateme, BSO, Cap Digital, Clever Cloud, Jamespot, Murena, Nexedi, OpenSVC, Patrowl, Rapid.Space, Scaleway, SenX, Signal, Teralab and Vates.

Up to €100,000 in funding for your projects

The Hyper Open X call for projects, entitled "Hyper Open Call", enables companies adopting Hyper Open X technologies to benefit from funding of up to €100,000. It is open to French SMEs, VSEs and start-ups wishing to implement a project using at least one of the technological building blocks proposed by the Hyper Open X consortium.

2 open-source bricks offered by Clever Cloud

Clever Cloud is a member of the consortium and offers 2 of the seven major technology bricks:

• Sōzu: A lightweight, extremely fast and secure reverse proxy designed for ultra-mutualized environments. Sozu enables configuration changes to be managed with zero downtime, ensuring continuous availability and optimum performance ;
• Biscuit: A tokenized solution for identity and access management (IAM) in cloud and edge computing environments. Invented at Clever Cloud and supported by a growing community of contributors, Biscuit offers security and authentication features superior to traditional solutions such as cookies, JWT and Macaroons.

Applications must be submitted by July 31, 2024 via a form available on the Cap Digital website.

"This call for projects, supported by France 2030, is quite unique in that it promotes and encourages the adoption of structuring open source and French technologies. It also sends a message of support to companies that publish or maintain open source solutions." Jean-Baptiste Piacentino, VP Alliances, Clever Cloud.

"I would also like to underline the leadership and vision of Jean-Paul Smets, CEO of Rapid.Space. It's thanks to him in particular that we're able to offer such a solution to support innovation in the cloud through open-source and its values of independence and knowledge sharing," he concludes.

If you have any questions, please write to partnership@clever-cloud.com

Animé par Horacio Gonzalez - @LostInBrittany
avec la participation de :
- Sébastien Blanc - @sebi2706
- Steven Le Roux - @GwinizDu
- Yanick Le Guern - @_Akanoa_

Épisode enregistré le 5 avril 2024

👋 Venez discuter avec nous sur @clever_cloudFR pour nous dire ce que vous avez pensé de ce nouvel épisode.

➡️ Pour découvrir ou réécouter d’anciens épisodes c’est par ici !

Chapitrage et Liens

00:00:00 Introduction et présentation des participants

00:02:52 - Changement de licence Redis

• Redis - https://redis.com/blog/redis-adopts-dual-source-available-licensing/ 
• Redict - https://redict.io/posts/2024-04-03-redict-7.3.0-released/
• Valkey - https://github.com/valkey-io/valkey 
• Valkey - https://www.linuxfoundation.org/press/linux-foundation-launches-open-source-valkey-community 
• Un peu d’histoire - https://www.gomomento.com/blog/rip-redis-how-garantia-data-pulled-off-the-biggest-heist-in-open-source-history 
• Une alternative mais en dual licence également - https://www.dragonflydb.io/ 
• The race to replace Redis https://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/966631/6bf2063136effa1e/ 

00:26:49 - Faille xz-utils

• Vidéo Olivier Poncet - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XX4McCXRV44
  https://gist.github.com/Akanoa/2dc95d505790456f2c5efc9def109cbc#file-gistfile1-txt
• (plein de liens sur la faille) https://www.wired.com/story/jia-tan-xz-backdoor/ 
• https://twitter.com/fulmicoton/status/1775427601194275294
• https://twitter.com/FFmpeg/status/1775178803129602500 

00:48:42 - Déferlante GenAI

• Pivot complet d’Acorn : https://www.acorn.io/resources/blog/our-new-focus-developing-an-llm-app-platform-based-on-gpt-script-technology
  • https://github.com/gptscript-ai/gptscript
• https://github.com/genai-for-all/go-docker-genai-stack (Philippe Charrière)
• https://floneum.com/ (pipeline de modèles)
• https://www.devoxx.fr/schedule/speaker-details/?id=39551

00:56:48 - Java 22

• Java 22 - https://blogs.oracle.com/java/post/the-arrival-of-java-22 
• Biscuit third party landed in Java -  https://www.biscuitsec.org/blog/third-party-blocks-why-how-when-who

Animé par Steven LEROUX @GwinizDu
avec la participation de :
- Antoine Blondeau @P4ndaFR
- Alexandre Duval @KannarFr
- Kevin Georges @0xd33d33

Épisode enregistré le 12 janvier 2024

👋 Venez discuter avec nous sur @clever_cloudFR pour nous dire ce que vous avez pensé de ce nouvel épisode.

➡️ Pour découvrir ou réécouter d’anciens épisodes c’est par ici !

Chapitrage et liens

• 00:00:16 : Introduction et présentation des participants
• 00:02:00 : Détection et ondes milimétriques
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjN9L8Cagnw mmwave
  Tuya hack https://www.youtube.com @Abrege
  What is mmWave Radar? https://www.seeedstudio.com/blog/2022/01/03/mmwave-radar-sensing-fmcw-radar/ mmwave
• 00:08:40: Home Assistant Green https://www.home-assistant.io/blog/2023/11/16/home-assistant-green-now-available/ 
• 00:11:30 : Matter
  https://csa-iot.org/all-solutions/matter/
• 00:16:25 : Centipède RTK collaboratif INRAE
  https://docs.centipede.fr/
  RTK guidance system : https://github.com/farmerbriantee/AgOpenGPS  https://github.com/farmerbriantee/AgOpenGPS_Boards/wiki 
• 00:31:13 : Tondeuse autonome guidée par RTK… comme un tracteur ! https://mammotion.com/products/luba-awd-5000-perimeter-wire-free-robot-lawn-mower 
• 00:42:42 : Wi-Fi/wave domotique ouverte par Shelly https://www.shelly.com/fr, https://shelly-api-docs.shelly.cloud/gen2/ComponentsAndServices/Introduction 
• https://blog.domadoo.fr/104514-shelly-produits-gen3-ces2024/ 
• Calaos 4 incoming https://calaos.fr/en/ Env de dev (devcontainers, github actions, …)
• Thread/Zigbee difference https://www.ti.com/document-viewer/lit/html/SSZT716 
• 00:55:16 : modbus protocol
• 01:01:10 : Pilotage chaudière https://forum.hacf.fr/t/pilotage-chaudiere-frisquet-eco-radio-system-visio/19814/79
• 01:19:24 : Nouvelle API Hue
  https://developers.meethue.com/new-hue-api/

• 01:30:00 : Musique de fin https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_UAeqh0Nwo

Animé par Quentin ADAM @waxcze

avec la participation de :

• @boredabdel Abdel SEGHIOUAR
• @badrelhouari Badr ELHOUARI
• @ZinebBendhiba Zineb Bendhiba
• @incepterr Mohamed elayadi

Épisode enregistré à Agadir le 13 octobre 2023

👋 Venez discuter avec nous sur @clever_cloudFR pour nous dire ce que vous avez pensé de ce nouvel épisode.

➡️ Pour découvrir ou réécouter d’anciens épisodes c’est par ici !

Timecodes et liens

00:05:06 : Devoxx Maroc 2023 le debrief
Open source initiative react documentation (lien à venir)

00:07:00 Keynote Quentin : https://devoxx.ma/talk/?id=37451

00:16:10 une démo de l’assistant IA en Marocain (lien à venir)

00:21:20 MS rachète Activision Blizzard
https://www.blogdumoderateur.com/microsoft-peut-enfin-racheter-activision-blizzard/

00:24:38 Tesla sort ses API
https://electrek.co/2023/10/12/tesla-releases-official-api-documentation-support-third-party-apps/?utm_source=tldrnewsletter

00:27:04 l’informatique est devenue économiquement très accessible
https://twitter.com/Nidouille/status/1712411333797322983

00:34:01 La Cloud Native Computing Foundation annonce la remise des certifications Cilium
https://www.cncf.io/announcements/2023/10/11/cloud-native-computing-foundation-announces-cilium-graduation/
Version, Release et fondation

00:48:53 Apache Camel 4.1
https://camel.apache.org/blog/2023/10/camel41-whatsnew/
Spring boot https://github.com/CleverCloud/spring-mysql-demo

00:53:45 [BIG NEWS] Après plusieurs mois de travail, notre nouveau site est en ligne. Et on en est fiers !
https://twitter.com/clever_cloudFR/status/1711357436118946288

00:54:20 première grosse faille dans HTTP 2
https://www.solutions-numeriques.com/itrust-alerte-dune-vulnerabilite-zero-day-http-2/

00:59:18 Clever release tous les connecteurs Sozu en open source
https://stagingv6.cleverapps.io/fr/blog/engineering-fr/2023/09/25/nos-connecteurs-sozu-open-source/

01:01:00 OXC sort un compileur rapide pour JS
https://github.com/web-infra-dev/oxc?utm_source=tldrnewsletter

01:07:20 de l’importance du nommage en programmation
https://wasp-lang.dev/blog/2023/10/12/on-importance-of-naming-in-programming?utm_source=tldrnewsletter

01:13:01 la musique de fin
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OAKWGwBYfk&lc=UgxLt6WykxqNOAEKk5x4AaABAg
Inass Inass par VAN

Clever Cloud is today the main developer of Sōzu, a Reverse Proxy that was developped at Clever Cloud, in Rust, to meet the needs of our infrastructure for performance and hot reloading. Sōzu is used throughout Clever Cloud, paired with HAProxy, to route traffic to our customer's applications.

What we used to do:

Up until now, our Reverse Proxy Sōzu used to be managed by Clever Cloud by a closed source program that ran on the same machine and assumed two big responsibilities:

• Firstly, listen to a RabbitMQ topic and redirect requests to Sōzu (via its UNIX socket)
• Secondly, watch over a PKI directory (Public Key Infrastructure) to redirect TLS certificates to Sōzu (via its UNIX socket)

Turning open source

While working on a new Prometheus connector for Sōzu, we realized we could open source it. With this realization came the idea of porting the logic of the former Sōzu manager (described above) from its closed source state into new open source repositories.
What we ultimately aim to develop is an entirely open-source ecosystem around our Reverse Proxy Sōzu.
This blog post details what these new open source components are, and summarizes what they do.

Our open-source ecosystem around Sōzu

Sōzu Prometheus connector

Prometheus is a monitoring and alerting software suite.
This simple connector operates alongside Sōzu. It waits for HTTP requests on the /metrics route, queries Sōzu for its metrics, formats the metrics to be Prometheus-compatible, and sends them in the HTTP response.
This means that Prometheus metrics are readily available on the IP address of a Sōzu machine.

Sōzu Pulsar connector

Apache Pulsar is a highly scalable messaging platform. We use it extensively at Clever Cloud because of its distributed aspect and cutting-edge throughput performance.
The Sōzu Pulsar connector subscribes to a Pulsar topic and transmits messages to Sōzu. Sōzu uses these messages to perform hot reloading on the proxy, which is a key feature of our Reverse Proxy.
What it means for us and anyone using the Sōzu ecosystem: this connector enables updating traffic redirection in real time.

Sōzu PKI connector

PKI stands for Public Key Infrastructure, an omnipresent security framework on the Internet, typically used for securing connections with HTTPS (among other things). In the PKI framework, Sōzu functions as a TLS endpoint: it decrypts HTTPS traffic into HTTP traffic.
The Sōzu PKI connector runs alongside Sōzu, watches over a given directory in the file system, reads TLS certificates that were put there by either human or machine, and transmits them to Sōzu.
Then , what this ultimately means is: write a TLS certificate on the machine, Sōzu will have it.

Sōzu client

This is a code library used by all above connectors. It pools connections to Sōzu's UNIX socket and functions entirely asynchronously. All in all, it makes writing new connectors easier.

What's next
The best thing we wish is for the open-source community to join us in using and improving Sōzu as it goes. Our end-game is to build a web UI to manage a Sōzu instance in the navigator.

Dans cet épisode de rentrée nous parlons de régulation de la concurrence au niveau européen, de Teraform dans Clever Cloud, d'un Smartphone Open Source à 30€, de perte de data suite à une attaque ransomware au Danemark, de l'arrivée de Linux 6.5, de virtualisation et de Java 21, avant de finir en finesse et en musique.

Avec la participation de :

• Julia March
• Julien Durillon
• Jean-Baptiste Kaiser

Épisode enregistré le 4 septembre 2023.

👋 Venez discuter avec nous sur @clever_cloudFR pour nous dire ce que vous avez pensé de ce nouvel épisode.

➡️ Pour découvrir ou réécouter d’anciens épisodes c’est par ici !

Timecode & Liens

00:00:16 - Présentation des participants

00:02:49 On a failli avoir une Américaine à la tête de la régulation/concurrence européenne 😱
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/08/27/france-macron-fiona-scott-morton-eu-chief-economist/

retour sur l’affaire scott morton

• https://twitter.com/LiguePastis/status/1681973874093588482 

00:10:19 Hashicorp change de license pour ses produits (exemple: Terraform et Vault)

https://www.hashicorp.com/blog/hashicorp-updates-licensing-faq-based-on-community-questions

00:17:18 insights sur l’inté terraform de Clever Cloud, par JB

00:19:08 À 15 ans, il construit un smartphone libre pour 30€

Digressions sur le rust embedded

https://docs.rust-embedded.org/book/index.html

https://github.com/oxidecomputer/hubris

00:25:41 

https://techcrunch.com/2023/08/23/cloudnordic-azero-cloud-host-ransomware/

• Les backups aussi ont été chiffrés 😬
• Attention au trusted network !
• « on leur a envoyé un mail, mais il a bounce »

00:30:42

https://www.zdnet.com/article/linux-6-5-kernel-arrives-with-exciting-new-features/

• https://kernelnewbies.org/Linux_6.4 

00:34:54

Pourquoi enterprise Linux c’est pas une super bonne idée (Julien)

https://unix.foo/posts/enterprise-linux/

• Stabilité VS sécurité

00:41:25

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/23/08/30/1525238/freebsd-can-now-boot-in-25-milliseconds

• … en l’optimisant pour les micro-VM
• Ça mentionne pas mal les travaux sur les systèmes configurés pour la virtu: tous les drivers sont du VirtIO (en gros)

00:50:04

Une pub pour le boulo de Akanoa https://twitter.com/PrometheeOS 

https://lafor.ge/virtualization-1/

START HERE : https://twitter.com/PrometheeOS/status/1696474722014265355?t=v9_CKiTDMVBDmnJzTXvWcw&s=19

00:53:52

Java 21 arrive / 

• LTS
• String templates !! (en preview, et pas comme les autres)
• SequencedCollections (des méthodes en plus sur certaines collections)
• Unnamed Patterns and Variables
• Unnamed classes
• Pattern matching
• Loom !!!
• Globalement: moins de verbosité !

01:07:36 : Musique de fin - ANDREA LASZLO DE SIMONE — Immensità
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0xh4qopQpk

Dans cet épisode très ouvert il est question de Rust qui est à la base de wymmo.com (le portail de notre invité), du ralentissement du secteur, de Docker pousse l'open source vers le payant et d'histoire de nos machines. Nous passons un moment à parler d'IA : annonce de GPT4, CopilotX, LLaMA avant de présenter quelques outils et de finir en musique.

Avec la participation de @juuduu
Emmanuel Bosquet (@EmmanuelBosquet) / Twitter
Guillaume Assier 🔋 (@GuillaumeAssier) / Twitter
jrx - Eventually Consultant - C# .. 🦀⚙️ (@jrouaix) / Twitter

Épisode enregistré le 24 mars 2023.

👋 Venez discuter avec nous sur @clever_cloudFR pour nous dire ce que vous avez pensé de ce nouvel épisode.

➡️ Pour découvrir ou réécouter d’anciens épisodes c’est par ici !

Timecode & Liens

00:00:16 - Présentation des participants

00:01:27 Projet pro : https://wymmo.com/

00:09:28 Et sinon le ralentissement dans notre secteur, vous le ressentez ?
https://www.lesechos.fr/start-up/next40-vivatech/payfit-se-separe-de-20-de-ses-effectifs-1910932
https://emploi.developpez.com/actu/342624/Y-a-t-il-une-bulle-dans-l-industrie-Tech-et-est-elle-en-train-d-eclater-Les-donnees-sur-les-offres-d-emploi-le-suggerent-mais-les-experts-estiment-que-c-est-le-moment-ideal-pour-y-travailler/

00:21:18 : Docker pousse l’open source vers un modèle payant
https://blog.alexellis.io/docker-is-deleting-open-source-images/
Faut faire du blé… devenir rentable
0€ −> 420€/an
Changement dans un mois.

00:28:58 Un peu d'histoire (en podcast), d'où viennent nos machines (Jérôme):

• https://techcafe.fr/steampunk-cafe-machine-de-babbage-et-autres-machines-a-vapeur/
  Métiers à tisser, cartes perforés, ordinateur à vapeur et machines analogiques (beaucoup de liens en description)
• https://techcafe.fr/supplement-steampunk-cafe-2-langleterre-du-colossus-a-lamstrad/
  La suite de l'Histoire et premiers transistors
  00:34:04 : Eloge duclavier BEPO
  https://bepo.fr/wiki/Accueil
  Klavaro : https://klavaro.sourceforge.io/fr/index.html

00:38:40 Open AI ne sera plus “open” et annonce GPT-4 (Jérôme)
https://openai.com/research/gpt-4
https://www.theverge.com/2023/3/15/23640180/openai-gpt-4-launch-closed-research-ilya-sutskever-interview
- L'IA passe de l'ère de la recherche à l'ère du secret
- "Open" AI n'a jamais si mal porté son nom

00:44:34 : CopilotX
https://github.blog/2023-03-22-github-copilot-x-the-ai-powered-developer-experience/ (Emmanuel)

00:49:21 : Comment fonctionnent les IA tels GPT-x
https://www.joshwcomeau.com/blog/the-end-of-frontend-development/

00:57:56 : Demandes DMCA des dépôts basés sur le modèle LLaMA (Large Language Model Meta AI) par Meta
Lama-dl + forks
https://twitter.com/theshawwn/status/1638925249709240322
https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/master/2023/03/2023-03-21-meta.md
https://twitter.com/Dorialexander/status/1638992849516544000?s=20

01:00:29 : Vol de compte meta via une extension chrome qui surfe sur la vague chatgpt
https://thehackernews.com/2023/03/fake-chatgpt-chrome-browser-extension.html

01:02:26 : Support en alpha des plugins dans chatgpt qui va améliorer son expérience produit
https://openai.com/blog/chatgpt-plugins

01:04:00 : Codegenr, l’outil de la semaine
https://github.com/eventuallyconsultant/codegenr

01:11:56 : Musique de fin - Sound of science - Portal
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0xh4qopQpk

Si les dés en avait décidé autrement, il y aurait pu avoir :

• Julien : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtxTSXhZbOQ Ma’agalim, Idan Raichel
• Guillaume : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVvx8cZcklQ When You’re Around, Oliver Tree
• Jérôme : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AbssmQ7EPI&list=PLD27AC29593FA45A7&index=18

Basically everything regarding exherbo is discussed and managed via the #exherbo IRC channel on irc.freenode.org.

Before contributing, you should first read the topic of the channel, the zebrapig patchbot documentation, the exheres for smarties tutorial (You do not have to read the whole thing, but always keep it around), and you can also keep the contributing guide around.

Using zebrapig

Zebrapig is exherbo's IRC patchbot. You can use three commands to interact with it:

• !pq <patch_url> ::<repository> => Use this to submit the patch available at the given URL (use git format-patch --stdout -M -C -C -1 | wgetpaste -r
  to get an URL for your git commit) to the repository you specified.
• !pd <pattern> => Use this to mark all the patches matching the given pattern as done, useful when you want to
  resubmit an updated version of your patch.
• pl <pattern> => Don't ever use it in the channel, only use it in a private query with zebrapig. It will list all
  patches matching this pattern (which is optional).

A special use-case is to submit your personal repository, you'll submit it as a patch, given its git URL and specifying ::unavailable-unofficial as the repository.

Everything submitted to the bot will be reviewed by developers who'll tell you what's wrong in your patch and how you could improve it. You're expected to be quite present in the channel if you start submitting stuff. Once your patch is ready, it will be pushed to the repository and available to everyone.

What I love about this mechanism is that it's really simple, handy and powerful.

My personal work flow for contributing

When I want to contribute to a repository, for a version bump or any bug fix, I proceed in 7 steps:

• If I do not have a copy of the repository locally I clone it, otherwise I pull new changes from upstream

• I write my patch and commit it

• I upload my patch with git pe HEAD~<number_of_commits> | wgetpaste -r -s poundpython (I'll explain this command later)

• I put a copy of my patch in my autopatch directory (which I'll explain after):

  mkdir -p /etc/paludis/autopatch/<repository>
  curl <patch_url> > /etc/paludis.autopatch/<repository>/my.patch
  

• I sync the repository so that the autopatch gets applied: cave sync <repository>

• I try my patch, compiling the related packages

• If everything succeeds, I submit my patch, otherwise, I get back to step 2 to fix my patch

The command which I run to upload my patch is a git alias, git pe means git format-patch -M -C --find-copies-harder --stdout and takes as an argument the commits to publish, HEAD~3 means 3 commits for example, I put -s poundpython as extra args for wgetpaste since gist.github.com which is the default fails quite often for me.

The other interesting part of it is how I manage the autopatch system. I have a paludis hook placed in /etc/paludis/hooks/sync_post which cause every patch located in /etc/paludis/autopatch/<repository>/ to be applied each time I sync the said repository.

Next time I'll explain how I contribute to upstream projects using nearly the same scheme, pointing out even more how intuitive and integrated this process is in my every day work.

As I said in part 3 of the “knowing your system” saga, I really started to dig into my system when I used Gentoo. I quickly spotted the limits of portage, its default package manager and switched to paludis.

It really is easy to mess up your python installation, especially when you’re not a python developer and you don’t care about it. Of course there are tools to help you, such as python-updater, but it won’t be of great help if you’re not in a basic “breakage because of python update” case. Because of portage being written in python, you end up with an unmaintainable system which is painful.

A pretty good example of this is when I tried install Gentoo on my Playstation 3. At this time, the powerpc stage was kinda old. During the base system installation and update, you ended with the linux headers version being incompatible with your python installation, and portage was unusable. After 3 attempts without success, I tried once starting by installing paludis, and then doing everything with it. It worked like a charm.

Portage is not the only limitation of Gentoo. Its workflow is kinda insane. First of all, Gentoo aims to get every piece of software packaged in a same repository, external overlays being there only for testing purpose before merging. You end up with tons of packages being available on your machine, 95% of them won’t ever interest you. You could say it’s cool to get everything available without needing internet access to retrieve them, but you’ll still have to download the source tarballs so it’s pointless, it just make dependencies resolution slower.

Another problem is contribution. To contribute to Gentoo, you’ll open a bug on their bugzilla with a patch attached (I’m fine with this first step, the next ones are awful). When a developer or a proxy maintainer sees it, he applies it locally and push it to the centralised CVS server (which you sync using rsync on client side…). There is a HUGE lack of consistency in this process:

• As a simple contributor, you won’t ever be the author of the real commit, at most you’ll be mentioned in the commit message
• You don’t use the same tool to pull changes in that the one developer use to push them.

Exherbo is awesome

After having used paludis on Gentoo for one year or so, I decided to involve myself in its community. I started to send a couple of patches for my purpose, and to help beginners to deal with it. I then heard of another bigger project they were launching: a brand new source-based distribution, a kind of Gentoo rewritten from scratch in a more modern, modular, clean and strict way.

While I was still using Gentoo, I started to install exherbo in a chroot, to give it a try. First thing I really enjoyed was that everything is split into several repositories. If I do not have any C# application installed, the repository containing the mono stuff won’t be installed and those packages won’t be available on my system. If I finally decide to install mono, I will automatically be suggested to install the mono repository, and running cave resolve -x1 repository/mono will do all the stuff for you. Everything is managed by git both on the developer and “user” side. Being an exherbo “user” is kinda special, since every user is considered as a developer by the community.

Contributing to exherbo is really easy and smooth, I’ll explain my contribution workflow next week.

As exherbo is a “new” distribution, not every package is available, so you’ll probably end up creating your own repository to package your software. Once you get enough packages in it and you want to share it with the community, you just have to submit it, people will review it and tell you how you can make it better. It will then be added to the list of available repositories so that people will be guided to it when they try to install software you’ll have packaged. For example, at Clever Cloud, we use openstack for now, and we had to package it and its dependencies. Everything is available in our repository.

One more thing: exherbo policy is to be as vanilla as possible. Every patch used in packages must contain the upstream status of it, since they all have to be submitted. We want to maintain as few patches as possible.

My exherbo repository

Clever Cloud exherbo repository