GSoC Report #1

2-minute read
debian • open-source
debian • gsoc

Hello there.

The last two weeks have been adventurous. Here’s what happened.
My GSoC project is to package a software called Loomio. A little about Loomio:
Loomio is a decision-making software, designed to assist groups with the collaborative decision-making process.
It is a free software web-application, where users can initiate discussions and put up proposals.

Loomio is mostly written in Ruby, but also includes some CoffeeScript, Vue, JavaScript, with a little HTML, CSS.
The idea is to package all the dependencies of Loomio and get Loomio easily installable on the Debian machines.

The phase 1, that is, the first 4 weeks, were planned to package the Ruby and the Node dependencies. When I started off, I hit an obstacle. Little did we know about how to go about packaging complex applications like that.
I have been helping out in packages like gitlab, diaspora, et al. And towards the end of the last week, we learned that loomio needs to be done like diaspora.
First goes the loomio-installer, then would come the main package, loomio.

Now, the steps that are to be followed for loomio-installer are as follows:
» Get the app source.
» Install gem dependencies.
» Create database.
» Create tables/run migrations.
» Precomiple assets (scss -> css, et al).
» Configure nginx.
» Start service with systemd.
» In case of diaspora, JS front end is pulled via wrapper gems and in case of gitlab, it is pulled via npm/yarn.
» Loomio would be done with the same way we’re doing gitlab.

Thus, in the last two weeks, the following work has been done:
» Ruby gems’ test failures patched.
» 18 gems uploaded.
» Looked into loomio-installer’s setup.
» Basic scripts like nginx configuration, et al written.

My other activities in Debian last month:
» Updated and uploaded gitlab 11.10.4 to experimental (thanks to praveen).
» Uploaded gitaly, gitlab-workhorse.
» Sponsored a couple of packages (DM access).
» Learned Perl packaging and packaged 4 modules (thanks to gregoa and yadd).
» Learned basic Python packaging.
» Helping DC19 Bursary team (thanks to highvoltage).
» Helping DC19 Content team (thanks to terceiro).

Plans for the next 2 weeks:
» Get the app source via wget (script).
» Install gem and node dependencies via gem install and npm/yarn install (script).
» Create database for installer.
» Precomiple assets (scss -> css, et al).

I hope the next time I write a report, I’ll have no twists and adventures to share.

Until next time.
:wq for today.