Re: How to package Nuxeo DM, a Java EE application, in Debian

[Stefane Fermigier <sf@nuxeo.com>]

On Feb 10, 2011, at 10:51 AM, Giovanni Mascellani wrote:

> On 09/02/2011 12:25, Stefane Fermigier wrote:
>> 2. sometimes the policies need to be changed in the face of reality.
>> Otherwise, we end up like these poor monkeys:
>> 
>> http://freekvermeulen.blogspot.com/2008/08/monkey-story-experiment-involved-5.html
> 
> Well, I don't think this story is appropriate here: I'm not defending
> the policy because it's the policy; I'm defending it because I think it
> tells how to do things in the saner way I'm able to think of (embedded
> copies and sourceless builds, in this case; did I miss anything?).

"Saner", yes, but also (practically) *impossible*.

Practicality beats purity: http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0020/

> Anyway, as has already been said, changing the policy is a big thing:
> you can try to convince us why it would be a good thing (and, in my
> case, you're failing; don't know about other DDs), but then the change
> has to pass through much harder discussions.

Obviously you're not in the target market for enterprise applications, so I can understand why you're not interested in having well done and supported Debian packages for JBoss, Nuxeo, XWiki, OfBiz, Adempiere, Lifreay, eXo, etc.

> 
>>> What is not true? The fact that packaging things in Debian is
>>> difficult or the fact that it's so because it requires some added
>>> value?
>> 
>> No, the fact that it *only* requires "some" added value.
>> 
>> You are requiring *much more*. You are requiring upstream developers
>> to *completely change* their development process, dropping maven to
>> use some non-existing tool, renouncing their QA process, etc.
> 
> I think this mainly depends on the fact that these projects are using a
> development model which has many problems: the main one is the fact that
> they decide to support the compilation against only a specific version
> of each library. In my opinion, this is a bad thing: libraries should
> been stable enough not to have these problems;

They should, but they aren't. There's the reality principle here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality_principle

> bugfix releases shouldn't
> do other than fix bugs, shouldn't introduce new depencies; minor
> releases should ensure backward compatibility nevertheless.

They don't. We have to live with that.

> Moreover, I'm not saying that Debian doesn't want to package your
> software; I'm just saying that we don't seem to have enough manpower to
> do it. This may change in the future.

This is not a question of manpower, this is a question of attitude and policy.

> In the meantime, the solution
> proposed by Torsten could address some of the problems; certainly, it
> wouldn't reduce the manpower needed.
> 
>> I'm also fed up with private apt repositories that only work with an
>> obsolete version of Debian (or Ubuntu).
> 
> Well, here the key is to keep that repository up-to-date. If you're
> managing it, it's definitely you're responsibility. :-)

We're doing our job. Others don't, so people don't have confidence in these private repos.

>> BTW, here's what geogebra's download page
>> (http://www.geogebra.org/cms/en/download) says: "You are free to
>> copy, distribute and transmit GeoGebra for non-commercial purposes".
>> 
>> Isn't this a flagrant violation of the DFSG (Item 6, "No
>> Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor") ?
> 
> Wasn't the first thing I said about geogebra that I was proud to have
> made it free software, while before it wasn't?

It's free software that advertises itself as non free. What a shame!

  S.

-- 
Stefane Fermigier, Founder and Chairman, Nuxeo
Open Source, Java EE based, Enterprise Content Management (ECM)
http://www.nuxeo.com/ - +33 1 40 33 79 87 - http://twitter.com/sfermigier
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