Good day everyone,
Thank you for your email, Damyan. I would like to introduce you to Nick (also known as Quyyk), one of our maintainers who expressed an interest in helping with bringing an updated Endless Sky to Debian in response to these emails. Although they work across the breadth of the game, they have a particular knowledge and skill with the game engine itself. Combined with their general technical abilities, they are one of the best positioned members of our community to help with this process.
At this point I will let you two take the lead and work out the details. That being said, I would enjoy being kept in the email chain so I can learn a bit by reading along with what you are doing.
I would also like to note that I have removed Michael from the email chain at his request. He appreciates the interest and effort it takes to get a game into Debian, but due to other time commitments does not wish to be included in the ongoing conversation.
I look forward to watching and learning about this process, and if there is any way I can assist I will be happy to do so.
Zitchas
Hello Zitchas,
-=| Zitchas Z, 11.11.2022 14:24:57 -0700 |=-
> Good day everyone,
>
> To start off, I have a few questions for you in regards to this. Sorry for the
> quantity, I haven't been part of the process of getting a game into Debian
> before, so I'm not sure on done of the terminology or what it entails.
In short: I am volunteering to maintain the Debian package (plus
endless-sky-high-dpi) and this doesn't require that you do anything
but produce the great game you already do :) Maybe answer
a copyright/license question or respond to a bug report/patch from
time to time, but that should be business as usual.
> 1. What do we need to do to facilitate updates to Endless Sky being
> packaged and made available here?
Technically, somebody with a key in the keyring needs to upload
a "source package" to the Debian infrastructure. This gets built
automatically on the various architectures supported by Debian and the
results are made (automatically) available for download through the
Debian package repositories, mirrored worldwide.
Such Debian "source package" usually requires only an additional
"debian/" directory along with the upstream sources. debian/ contains
various metadata and instructions for building the binary packages.
So far the source package was taken care of by Michael and uploaded by
a couple of Debian developers.
> 2. There had been mention of having someone as co-maintainer, sponsor/mentor,
> and the option of having this under the group maintenance of the Debian Games
> group. What would be involved in each of these options? Are these mutually
> exclusive options, or complimentary?
"Maintainer" would be the primary contact about the package. The
person doing most of the work. Co-maintainers are other people who
help and are also considered "authority" about what is done and how
with regard to the packaging.
"Sponsor" would be somebody with a key in the keyring who can upload
the package, after a review. "Mentor" would be someone who guides the
maintainer and helps them learn. Usually the mentor is also a sponsor.
With the Games team option, the team would be "maintainer" with
individual members who have interest in the package listed as
co-maintainers.
This is the option that seems natural to me, with Michael stepping
down[0] from maintainer position. I am interested in the package so
I'll be listed as co-maintainer. Having the team as maintainer allows
other team members to help when needed.
[0] https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-games/2022/11/msg00008.html
> 3. What sort of long term commitment do we need of someone takes on
> responsibility for handling this? Is this someone who just needs to do a build,
> test, and upload the game each update? Is there likely to be additional editing
> and adjustment required?
You can see the history of the Git repository[1] in which I worked on
the upgrade to 0.9.16 for the details but in short, the one big thing
I had to do to was to make sure that all copyright/licensing changes
are properly reflected in the debian/copyright file. By the way, I am
impressed of how good this is presented upstream. Really made the job
easier :)
[1] https://salsa.debian.org/dmn/endless-sky
> have our
> GitHub repository setup to automatically build releases for MacOS, Windows, and
> an appimage. Can the Debian build feasibly be done alongside these?
I guess you can make a CI produce .deb packages, but these can't be
made part of the official Debian repositories, not without a real
person with a key in the Debian keyring uploading the source package
(after a review).
> 5. Does whoever does this require any permissions beyond the publicly available
> source code and data? (There is no secret data/code, it is all
> publicly
> visible).
Preparing the source package needs someone doing the work. Uploading
to Debian requires a GPG key in the keyring. This is much more
involved and requires completing the New maintainer process[2]
[2] https://www.debian.org/devel/join/
Not sure if my answers settle down your questions. I am happy to try
to clarify any dim points.
-- Damyan