Re: Best practices for Debian developers who are also upstreams?

[Alf Gaida <agaida@siduction.org>]

Hi Otto,

i'm doing this for years now (LXQt)

To sum it up:
* there are no special rules, but i suggest to keep your hats strictly
separated
* if there are some doubts upstream - just think how you would feel with
a release with your downstream hat on
* if you release something upstream and have to patch it for debian
(nuff said :D)
* if still in doubt - just make an Arch Linux package - and think about
the differences

At all, we (LXQt) have learned a lot about licenses, abi and api things
and simple no-go's for an reliable upstream. Most of my packages are
without any patches, some packages have some ness. overrides for
architectures, nothing i could do against. All packages are boring
packagingwise - and that's a very good sign. I use the classical way of
release tarballs, the workflow is: download, import, pristine-tar, check
control, copyright and be done with. In my case up- and down-stream are
fully discoupled. If something special happend - new abi, need for
package splits, things we couldn't handle upstream - i know it before
and be prepared, even packagingwise. So the maintainance is just a
breeze most of the time.

If you ware both upstream and downstream hats you should ask yourself
some questions:
* have i really done all the things to make downstream comftable
* if not, what could i do to make downstream more comftable
* what can i do to make downstream life better in future releases

Guess what, other downstreams will love you for.

Cheers Alf