On Sun, 28 Oct 2007 12:54:20 -0400 Jim Sansing <jjsansing@verizon.net> wrote: > As a longtime software developer (but fairly recent Debian user), my > experience that is when it works for me, that is just the first step on > a long > road. So I am sure that the job of mentors is much more complicated > than just looking over the shoulder of package maintainers. I think it is > also likely that many package maintainers will never become DDs, In which case, many sponsors would ignore RFS requests from such maintainers and the packages may be more likely to not be sponsored. I certainly think that sponsoring is a step towards joining Debian. As an upstream developer and a DD, I have *no* wish to see more packages made by upstream developers who only have a passing interest in Debian. There are plenty of such "ego packages" in Debian already. > because they may be maintaining the package for other distros, or simply > have too much else to do. http://people.debian.org/~codehelp/#join > That being said, it would be nice to have something to help people create > Debian packages. IMHO, package management should be limited to the > distro's PM, except in extreme cases. If upstream teams provided packages > of their apps for the major distros, users would be able to follow this > rule > more easily. I disagree. Upstream do not have the time to monitor library transitions, policy changes, dpkg changes and all the other issues that a package maintainer must be able to monitor. Upstream are not likely to want to spend time triaging Debian bugs in the BTS because the temptation is always to only work on bugs upstream which delays fixes until the next release. Unless upstream includes a DD, upstream does not make a good maintainer. > _And_ there would be a pool of new apps with 'pretty good > packages' already built. Not good enough. Many packages on mentors would get the "good enough" moniker from upstream developers who don't use Debian. The sponsor is unlikely to be satisfied with that. > I have only looked at it briefly, but the ESP > Package > Manager (http://epmhome.org/index.php, and epm is already a Debian > package) could encourage application teams to create reasonably good > packages for multiple distros. I suggest that those who are concerned > about > new packages look into making sure this creates good Debian packages, > encourage other distros to do the same, and promote it to development teams. I like CDBS but many DD's do not because it takes the maintainer too far away from what is actually happening to create the package. I think you can imagine how such DD's would look at yet another layer of automation and abstraction. Automation in *testing* packages that have been made is good. Automation in *constructing* new packages is bad. The package maintainer *must* be able to: 1. Understand how Debian works, re Policy etc. 2. Use the BTS. 3. Be committed to Debian above other distributions - preferably considering joining Debian. Upstream generally don't care about Debian library transitions, Debian release dates, Debian Policy (where it conflicts with upstream ideas) etc. It is the package maintainer who has to smooth off the edges of the upstream package to let it fit with the rest of Debian. That is the basis of the quality that everyone finds so appealing about Debian - we mould the upstream into a cohesive whole. My own upstream packages are probably a PITA to build on Fedora or Gentoo but I don't care. Those problems are down to whoever chooses to be package maintainer for those distros. When I receive patches from those maintainers, I do what I can to accommodate their needs in with the rest of the package but when, for example, SuSE tried to force my hand to 'upgrade' to an unstable version of a library when the version in Debian was stable, I refused. I have no idea whether SuSE still use the unstable branch but as, after >2 yrs, that branch is still not released as the "stable" branch by that upstream team and is not even in Debian experimental, my own upstream will remain incompatible with that version and only look for the stable version. There is no harm in that - upstream need to concentrate on upstream issues and Debian needs to concentrate on Debian issues. Sometimes the two coincide and sometimes they conflict. Unless upstream includes someone who is fully versed in Debian, those conflicts mean that upstream .deb packages are only good for /dev/null. -- Neil Williams ============= http://www.data-freedom.org/ http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/ http://www.linux.codehelp.co.uk/
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