Re: Reviving the apptainer packaging effort

[Andreas Tille <andreas@an3as.eu>]

Hi Roland,

Am Thu, Feb 27, 2025 at 03:37:05PM +0100 schrieb Roland Mas:
> As part of our work on Scibian, a Debian derivative focused on scientific
> computing at EDF, we're in need of working packages for apptainer. We're
> ready to put up with the work needed, or at least give it our best shot.

Sounds very good.
 
> We believe it makes sense to maintain them in Debian first, so in order not
> to duplicate work or step on anyone's toes, I'm sending this email to a wide
> audience; I suggest restricting your replies to the debian-go list, which we
> feel is the most appropriate for discussion.

ACK.
 
> singularity and apptainer have a long and complex history, with many
> packaging attempts by various persons. Our first task will be to get an idea
> of who did what, where the code lives, and probably pick a starting point
> from there. Also, if you have words of wisdom or warnings or ideas, ther by
> all means do speak up. The task is big and indimidating, and any help will
> be most welcome.

I once worked on Apptainer[1] by simply forking singularity-container[2]
which is maintained by Nilesh very bravely.  I forgot exactly my
motivation - maybe when I was struck with updating singularity-container
and learned that Apptainer is the official successor.

At some point I gave up - probably due to even more Go packages as
predependencies while I do not speak Go myself (luckily the packaging is
not very complex).  The repository[1] can be considered unmaintained and
I'd be super happy if someone wants to continue.  I guess the first step
would be to import lastest upstream.

> Looking forward to your feedback :-)

I wish you good luck and success in bringing Apptainer into Debian.
Please feel absolutely free in removing me from Uploaders list.

> Luca Soler & Roland Mas.

Kind regards
    Andreas.

[1] https://salsa.debian.org/hpc-team/apptainer
[2] https://salsa.debian.org/go-team/packages/singularity-container

-- 
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