DEP1: Non Maintainer Uploads (final call for review)
Hi,
After a long delay, here is a final call for reviews and comments for
DEP1. I've wrote it as a patch to developers-reference, and extracted
the relevant part on:
http://people.debian.org/~lucas/nmudep/pkgs.html
If you prefer to read the diff, go to:
http://people.debian.org/~lucas/nmudep/nmu.diff
Also, I've included a text dump of the full section at the end of this
mail, but please review the html version if possible, as the text
version won't show problems in the markup that was used, for example.
You might also want to have a look at the archives of
debian-{devel,project} in april, may and june.
I'm interested both in ACKs and suggestions for changes.
Thank you,
- Lucas
--------------
5.11. Non-Maintainer Uploads (NMUs)
Every package has one or more maintainers. Normally, these are
the people who work on and upload new versions of the package.
In some situations, it is useful that other developers can
upload a new version as well, for example if they want to fix a
bug in a package they don't maintain, when the maintainer fails
to respond to issues. Such uploads are called Non-Maintainer
Uploads (NMU).
5.11.1. When and how to do an NMU
Before doing an NMU, consider the following questions:
o Do you really fix bugs in your NMU? Fixing cosmetic issues,
or changing the packaging style in NMUs is discouraged,
unless it is required to fix bugs.
o Did you give enough time to the maintainer? When was the bug
reported to the BTS? Being busy for a week or two isn't
unusual. Is the bug so severe that it needs to be fixed
right now, or can it wait a few more days?
o How confident are you about your changes? Please remember
the Hippocratic Oath: "Above all, do no harm." It is better
to leave a package with an open grave bug than applying a
non-functional patch, or one that hides the bug instead of
resolving it. If you are not 100% sure of what you did, it
might be a good idea to seek advice from others. Remember
that if you break something in your NMU, many people will be
very unhappy about it.
o Have you clearly expressed your intention to NMU, at least
on the BTS? Has the maintainer been notified of it? It is
also a good idea to try to contact the maintainer by other
means (private email, IRC).
o If the maintainer is usually active and responsive, have you
tried to contact him? In general it should be considered
preferable that a maintainer takes care of an issue himself
and that he is given the chance to review and correct your
patch, because he can be expected to be more aware of
potential issues which an NMUer might miss.
When doing an NMU, you must first make sure that your intention
to NMU is really clear. Then, you must send a patch with the
differences between the current package and your proposed NMU to
the BTS (the nmudiff script in the devscripts package might be
helpful).
Unless you have an excellent reason not to do so, you must then
give some time to the maintainer to react (for example, by
uploading to the DELAYED queue). Here are some delays that you
could use as default values:
o Upload fixing only release-critical bugs older than 7 days:
2 days
o Upload fixing only release-critical and important bugs: 5
days
o Other NMUs: 10 days
Those delays are only examples. In some cases (uploads fixing
security issues, trivial bugfixes blocking a transition, ...),
it is desirable that the fixed package reaches unstable sooner.
Sometimes, release managers decide to allow NMUs with shorter
delays for a subset of bugs (e.g release critical bugs older
than 7 days). Also, some maintainers listed themselves in the
Low Threshold NMU list, and accept that NMUs are uploaded
without delay. But even in those cases, it's still a good idea
to give the maintainer a few days to react before you upload,
especially if the patch wasn't available on the BTS before, or
if you know that the maintainer is generally active.
After you upload an NMU, you are responsible for the possible
problems that you might have introduced. You must keep an eye on
the package (subscribing to the package on the PTS is a good
idea).
This is not a license to perform NMUs thoughtlessly. If you NMU
when it is clear that the maintainers are active and would have
acknowledged a patch in a timely manner, or if you ignore the
recommendations of this document, be warned, there is no
protection for you here. You should always be prepared to defend
the wisdom of any NMU you perform on its own merits.
5.11.2. NMUs and debian/changelog
Just like any other (source) upload, NMUs must add an entry to
debian/changelog, telling what has changed with this upload. The
first line of this entry is special, it must be:
* Non-maintainer upload
The version must be the version of the last upload, plus +nmuX,
where X is a counter starting at 1. If the last upload was also
an NMU, the counter should be increased. For example, if the
current version is 1.5-1, then an NMU would get version
1.5-1+nmu1. If the current version is 1.5+nmu3 (a native package
which has already been NMUd), the NMU would get version
1.5+nmu4. If a new upstream version is packaged in the NMU, the
debian revision is set to 0, for example 1.6-0+nmu1.
This special versioning is needed to avoid stealing one of the
package maintainer's version numbers, which might disrupt their
work. It also has the benefit of making it visually clear that a
package in the archive was not made by the official maintainer.
If you upload a package to testing or stable, you sometimes need
to "fork" the version number tree. This is the case for security
uploads, for example. For this, a version of the form +debXYuZ
should be used, where X is the current stable major release
number, and Y is the current minor release number for a stable
upload, or one higher than that for a testing upload. Z is a
counter starting at 1. For example, while Etch (Debian 4.0) is
stable, a security NMU to stable for a package at version 1.5-3
would have version 1.5-3+deb40u1, while a security NMU to Lenny
would get version 1.5-3+deb41u1. This is the case even when it
is already known that the next release will be a new major
version ; for instance, Lenny will be released as Debian 5.0.
5.11.3. Using the DELAYED/ queue
After asking the maintainer for the permission to upload your
NMU, it is annoying to have to wait for some time before you
actually make the upload.
The DELAYED queue (see Section 5.6.2, "Delayed uploads") allows
the developer doing the NMU to perform all the necessary tasks
at the same time. Instead of telling the maintainer that you
will upload the updated package in (for example) 7 days, you
should upload the package to DELAYED/7 and tell the maintainer
that he has 7 days to react. During this time, the maintainer
can ask you to delay the upload some more, or cancel your
upload.
The DELAYED queue should not be used to put additional pressure
on the maintainer. In particular, it's important that you are
available to cancel or delay the upload before the delay expires
(the maintainer cannot cancel the upload himself).
If you make an NMU to DELAYED, and the maintainer updates his
package before the delay expires, your upload will be rejected,
because a newer version (the maintainer's one) is already
available in the archive. Normally, the maintainer should take
care to include your proposed changes (or at least a solution
for the problems they address) in that upload.
5.11.4. NMUs from the maintainer's point of view
When someone NMUs your package, this means they want to help you
to keep it in good shape. This saves you work, and gives users
fixed packages faster. You can consider asking the NMUer to
become a co-maintainer of the package.
If someone suggests that they could do an NMU on your package,
you should be thankful that they want to put time into this,
while it is really your responsibility to fix the bug. Receiving
an NMU on a package is not a bad thing; it just means that the
package is interesting enough for other people to work on it.
When a package has been NMUed, the maintainer should acknowledge
it in the next upload. This makes clear that the changes were
accepted in the maintainer's packaging, and that they aren't
lost again. For this, you must first incorporate the changes
into your package, as far as you want to keep them. Make sure to
include the NMU's changelog entry (not just the line describing
the changes) in your own changelog. This is important to allow
the BTS version tracking to work.
5.11.5. Source NMUs vs Binary-only NMUs (binNMUs)
The full name of an NMU is source NMU. There is also another
type, namely the binary-only NMU, or binNMU. A binNMU is also a
package upload by someone other than the package's maintainer.
However, it is a binary-only upload.
When a library (or other dependency) is updated, the packages
using it may need to be rebuilt. Since no changes to the source
are needed, the same source package is used.
BinNMUs are usually done by porters. They add an entry to
debian/changelog, explaining why the upload was needed and
increasing the version number as described in Section 5.10.2.1,
"Recompilation or binary-only NMU". This entry should not be
included in the next upload.
Buildds upload packages for their architecture to the archive as
binary-only uploads. Strictly speaking, these are binNMUs.
However, they are not normally called NMU, and they don't add an
entry to debian/changelog.
5.11.6. NMUs vs QA uploads
NMUs are uploads of packages which are owned by another
maintainer. There is another type of upload where the uploaded
package is not yours: QA uploads. QA uploads are uploads of
orphaned packages.
QA uploads are very much like normal maintainer uploads: they
may fix anything, even minor issues; the version numbering is
normal, and there is no need to use a delayed upload. The
difference is that you are not listed as the Maintainer or
Uploader for the package. Also, the changelog entry of a QA
upload has a special first line:
* QA upload.
If you want to do an NMU, and it seems that the maintainer is
not active, it is wise to check if the package is orphaned. When
doing the first QA upload to an orphaned package, the maintainer
should be set to Debian QA Group <packages@qa.debian.org>.
Orphaned packages which did not have a QA upload yet still have
their old maintainer set. There is a list of them at
http://qa.debian.org/orphaned.html.
Instead of doing a QA upload, you can also consider adopting the
package by making yourself the maintainer. You don't need
permission from anybody to adopt an orphaned package, you can
just set yourself as maintainer and upload the new version (see
Section 5.9.5, "Adopting a package").
--
| Lucas Nussbaum
| lucas@lucas-nussbaum.net http://www.lucas-nussbaum.net/ |
| jabber: lucas@nussbaum.fr GPG: 1024D/023B3F4F |
Reply to: