Re: mentors.debian.net reloading
> times, but when I found some of the people here so nice and helpful, I
> could learn so much. The learning curve is quite long, and I still have
> so many things to learn.
>
> That vote system goes totally on the opposite direction, and
> blacklisting or discouraging people that are trying to learn is really
> not a good thing, IMHO.
Yes, I feel the same.
> > the service will automatically build and check the package.
>
> Everybody suddenly seems to think that yet another buildd is a great
> idea. Why is it? During the sponsoring process having a binary package
> is pretty useless. A sponsor will/should always take the source package,
> build it again and check both the source and the binary package.
I think It is a great idea because me, as a new user trying to create
my first debian package, I don't want to waste other's people time.
What I want is some automatic service, that will automatically check
my package and tell me - improve this, improve that etc etc.
First, and second - I, and I think it's the same with others, I am
doing the packaging especially because I want to fix the problem for
myself. But when I am doing it, of course I want to fix it for others
too (because that's easy, when I already fixed it for myself). So I
want to package a new program and use it now - but that's the argument
for PPA, which I think you agree with.
> So far so good. Although you shouldn't rely on an automated tool but
> rather use it in addition. I wouldn't sponsor a package just because
> lintian doesn't complain.
Agree.
> > At the moment I need to do all of this by hand and it's very time
> > consuming.
>
> So is package maintenance.
It is, but when something can be automated, it should.
> > And then my sponsor needs to do the same, to be sure I
> > didn't make a mistake.
>
> Correct. Because the sponsor will be responsible for the package at that
> moment. The only solution I see here is that the package maintainer
> becomes a Debian developer or Debian contributor.
That's the next step.
> > With Debian PPA, my sponsor can easily be sure the technical things
> > are ok and concenrate on QA.
>
> Aren't "technical things" == QA?
As I said, I think what can be automated should be automated. Parts of
QA checks are pbuilder, lintian, linda, piuparts logs. All of those
could be automated and listed on the Debian PPA's page (be it
mentors.debian.net, or other page, that's ok).
QA things are imho manually checking, I runtime depend on all needed
packages, that copyright is fine, that the package is dfsg free, that
debian/rules is robust, that my patches are ok, the package
description is ok, etc. etc.
> > It contains links to all relevant discussions about this issue. But
> > when I found svnbuildstat, I want to work with Goneri. As Gonéri said,
> > we are trying to create such building blogs - a server that will
> > accept source packages (I only need source packages, Goneri also needs
> > input from VCS), and buildbots, that will do the compiling.
>
> Isn't that what buildds are about?
Yes, they are. But I want to make them easy to install, also I think
pbuilder/cowbuilder is better.
> > PPA is a means how to get the packages to Debian and to ease the
> > process of it, for everyone.
>
> What do you mean by "get the package to Debian"? Sponsorship? Or
> creating a competing repository for end-users?
I mean getting it to the official Debian unstable main archive.
> > Besides those you also have a social argument - that you fear it will
> > actually decrease the number of new packages in Debian, or that it
> > will increase the number of unhappy users. I think it will actually be
> > the opposite, but that's just my opinion.
>
> I'm scared by the thought that there will be a dozen PPAs that end-users
> will use to get their software from third-party sources. IMHO good
> packages should go officially into Debian. And bad packages should go to
> hell. Sponsorship might be a problem sometimes which may be solved by
> the "Debian Maintainer" status which should allow you to upload packages
> into Debian. I would hate to read on mailing lists "the version of
> 'kaffeine' in Debian is outdated. There is a newer version in PPA X
> that you could use. Or you use the version in PPA Y which is even newer
> but I hard it's broken". (shiver)
Why not? It's like with Ubuntu - it also has some newer packages. I
think more options are good, not bad. The official archive is the
unstable one - and that's the only one that is supported. And to
ensure high quality of it, I like this whole sponsorship thing, the
NEW queue and everything.
But also, as the user, I want to use immediatelly the packages that I
create, and also that other people create. I want to use them
unofficially, until the package hits unstable, which can take up to 2
months.
> > Basically I think all of those and similar problems can be solved, if
> > we want to.
>
> I'm absolutely on your side. Just not for the binary package part which
> scares me.
The debian mentors site doesn't have to provide the binary part. But I
want some site, that will provide it.
But anyway, I prefer to do something rather than to talk, so I bought
a virtualserver with unlimited bandwidth and I am going to try to
build the debian PPA, just for myself at the beginning. And I'll see
how it works. And the buildbots with Goneri and when we have it, we
can talk, if this service is useful or not for Debian and wheter it
should be more official, or not. If we decide it's rather not good for
Debian, I'll just create access for people that ask me to.
Ondrej
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