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Re: Difference between Ubuntu and Debian Java packages



Mehdi Dogguy wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> The Java team takes care of a lot of packages (428)[3] and it's hard to
> keep track of all packages. It becomes harder when you also need to
> track the changes in other distros.
> 
> A simple thing to do is to look for changes in Ubuntu and try to
> minimize the difference between the two distros by backporting these
> changes.
> 
> This afternoon, I made a quick script[1][4] to see the difference.
> 

Hi

I think the script has potential; personally I agree with you (from your
later email) that it has been difficult to keep track of the packages
with a delta with the amount of packages currently maintained by the
java team.

> How the packages are selected?
> - Packages maintained within the team
> - or Packages in section Java
> - or Packages with a build-dep on default-jdk-builddep
> 
> I choosed these creterias because I noticed that some packages are not
> in the correct section (like ant which is in section Java in Debian but
> in devel in Ubuntu ... which seems strange) and with the hope to not
> miss any package.
> 

Based on the script I think you should just go with "Packages maintained
within the team"; we have plenty public/team packages there needing our
attention.

Personally I would prefer knowing that I am dealing with a package I can
fix right away - instead of having to ask the maintainer of it for
permission and all that.

> The script looks for the newest Debian (unstable) version, looks for the
> Ubuntu (lucid) version, then: if the Ubuntu version is greater than the
> Debian version, then looks for changes since the Debian version. It's
> simple, gives interesting results but not the complete set of packages
> since it doesn't look for differences in past versions (which should be
> done some day).
> 
> Any results?
> - There is some false positives (like -build* versions). I can filter
> them out but I'd like to keep them in the list.

To see which packages may need a sync-request in Ubuntu? If so it would
make great sense to hide the packages where Debian does not have a newer
version.

> - There are a lot of (simple) changes that can be synced back.
> - There are 76 packages in the list.
> - The script can be used to see the changes in packages of another team.
> All you have to do is to change the query at line 35.
> 
> I will try to sponsor every backport announced on this list when the
> changes are relevant/applicable/valid.
> 
> [1] http://people.debian.org/~mehdi/java/grab-packages.sh
> [2] http://people.debian.org/~mehdi/java/pkg-java-maint-pkgs.txt
> 
> [3] grep-dctrl -FMaintainer pkg-java-maintainers@lists.alioth.debian.org
> Sources.Debian  | wc -l
> 
> [4] The interesting part is its output, not its source code :)
> 
> I hope that some of you would help me to backport these changes (when
> relevant) and some comments or ideas for improvements,
> 

Sure, I do not mind preparing a package or 5 when I am not busy.

I ran your script and noticed that it occasionally spits out an error
from dpkg-parsechangelog. I could not figure out what caused it though.

I would also like if it could provide the link for the Ubuntu patch (the
one PTS links to) - it saves the time to look up the package on the PTS
(or creating the link manually).

~Niels

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