Subject kiss-community's status
From    Dilyn Corner 
Date    Mon, 12 Jul 2021 13:08:00 -0500

Hello all!

Recently, $/dylanaraps arrived back on the scene, making plenty of
contributions, restoring the previous $/kisslinux org, and doing some incredibly
major changes to KISS Linux! I know I speak for everyone when I say that I'm
glad he's back and getting back to what he loves doing.

Dylan has made some posts; I recommend reading them! [0] [1] [2].

Naturally, his coming back has brought up quite the onslaught of questions. I'm
going to answer as many of them as I can, and hopefully eliminate the confusion
surrounding all of this :)


* First and foremost: the new project URL is kisslinux.xyz.

I do not know what will come of k1sslinux.org.
Dylan did not/has not asked for the domain or the VPS hosting the mail server or
the git & fossil mirrors of the repositories. So it seems that he doesn't want
them, which is totally fine. At present, the site will continue to exist for a
short while longer, though it should no longer be the reference point for where
to get information on KISS. The site will eventually simply be a redirect to
kisslinux.xyz, or cease to exist. There could potentially be a new website,
which leads me to my next point...


* $/kiss-community will continue to exist.

This org came into existence as a way of centralizing the work being done on the
core parts of KISS, namely the main repositories, init, the wiki, the website,
and kiss itself. With Dylan back, much of this work is redundant (if not wholly
confusing to users). As such, $/kiss-community will see some restructuring.

What you can expect:
$/kiss-community/repo will no longer be the main upstream repository. If you are
100% on board with the work Dylan is doing at $/kisslinux/repo feel free to
switch your remotes and carry on as you always have! Please be aware that the
project has seen some major changes. The switch from Xorg to Wayland shouldn't
present (many) breaking changes to your setups, but the switch from Libressl to
Openssl could certainly cause some potentially strange problems. I leave it to
each user to determine how heavily they're impacted, but if you switch, I
recommend:
0) Change remotes (git remote set-url origin https://github.com/kisslinux/repo)
1) Identifying which packages require libressl (kiss-revdepends libressl)
2) Download the sources for those packages (kiss d $(kiss-revdepends libressl))
3) Building and installing openssl (kiss b openssl)
4) Forcibly removing libressl (KISS_FORCE=1 kiss r libressl)
5) Rebuild the packages from 1) (kiss b $(kiss-revdepends libressl)).

The switch to Wayland presents a possibly harder hurdle. I would recommend
simply removing your entire xorg stack (xorg-server, libinput, xf86-*, etc) and
starting over - many packages saw the elimination of dependencies, options, etc.
which could cause some... strange issues.


* $/kiss-community will serve a different purpose

I've mentioned this on IRC [3], but it's worth saying here:
    $/kiss-community/repo will not be a suitable upstream location. I have not
    been using Xorg for many months, and don't want to maintain a fork of KISS.
    IF anyone is interested in maintaining a libressl+xorg version of the main
    repository, you are more than welcome to do so AND host it at
    $/kiss-community - pop into IRC and we can all discuss it :)


* Dylan does not intend on hosting a community repository.

$/kiss-community/community will continue to exist to serve its purpose as usual.
However, it is still governed by the guidestones behind KISS. Packages in it
should build against whatever exists in $/kisslinux/repo as this is the
standard. Xorg packages will not be accepted (and should be dropped), openssl
should replace libressl in dependencies lists, etc. If $/kiss-community/repo
becomes a xorg+libressl repo, a community project can exist there (making it
repo/extra, repo/xorg, repo/community).


* $/kiss-community can expand

Large projects are welcome to be held under the umbrella of the KISS community
org which need not keep to the guidestones as strictly! This includes proper
ports of KISS, KISS with glibc, large projects like KISS-kde or kiss-xfce4, a
dbus/pipewire/pulseaudio repo, etc. If you would like to maintain something like
this at $/kiss-community ... hop into IRC :)


* $/kiss-community/repo-bin will be broadened

repo-bin was initially for 'time consuming packages' in the main repository.
This can now be extended to packages in community (like chromium, webengine). If
you would like to contribute a package to repo-bin... Hop into IRC to discuss!


* Certain repositories will be archived

This list includes init, kiss, website, and wiki. There isn't much of a need for
them. Any contributions meant for there can instead be sent to $/kisslinux :)


* IRC and Reddit are now unofficial channels

It would seem Dylan would prefer to stick more closely to simply maintaining the
project and less time fiddling with IRC and the subreddit. While there have been
some commits to the repositories that make it seem like Dylan is watching the
IRC logs, he hasn't been very active in there. These areas will continue under
their current control structures, though they could potentially change in the
future. Just be aware that these are now entirely community-run enterprises, and
aren't to be construed as officially involved with the KISS project. They are
still, however, still about our beloved distribution :)


---


I'd like to reiterate: I am not forking KISS, I have no intention of maintaining
a fork of KISS (outside of the work I've done myself at $/dilyn-corner/KISS-me
which is... roughly a fork), and KISS is not MY project. It is and always has
been Dylan's. If you don't like his changes or my decision, you're in luck; the
distribution was devised in such a way that you can do your own thing. Several
users are already doing their own work (https://asd.armaanb.net &
$/ehawkvu/kiss-xorg for instance).

I won't push changes which IMMEDIATELY break your machines, but you should be
looking to make your relevant migrations in the next week or two.


Thank you for your time, and I look forward to this new chapter!

    Dilyn


[0] https://kisslinux.xyz/news/20210703a
[1] https://kisslinux.xyz/news/20210708a
[2] https://kisslinux.xyz/blog/20210711a
[3] https://libera.irclog.whitequark.org/kisslinux/2021-07-11#30251868