Re: DEB packaging request
Sam,
I do have some questions about this approach. Not that I think it's a bad
thing to have such a release management group, but I'm not certain it won't
be seen as a burden, even though it does involve only one low-traffic list,
to new potential Debian maintainers for your packages.
On Mon, Jun 10, 2002 at 09:19:26AM -0700, Sam Hart wrote:
> However, we currently have a couple of educational projects which have no
> dedicated Debian packagers, and we will soon have more. So I was wondering
> if you guys had some dedicated Debian packagers you could spare to come
> join our Release Management Group and help get more of our projects into
> Debian (especially, Debian Jr.)?
For existing Debian developers, what particular benefit to them is there to
doing that? I see how it suits your needs nicely, but not the individual
Debian developer, keen on packaging maybe just one of your packages for
Debian.
> Basically, they would not be subscribed to any individual project's
> mailing list. Instead, they would be subscribed to our Release Management
> list, which is a low-traffic list just for those people involved in
> supplying packages and ports. The idea here is that when a project manager
> is ready for a release, he/she contacts the Release Management list
> asking for it to be packaged and ported. Those people on the list sound
> off on what they intend to do ("I will make the Win32 port", "I will make
> the Debian source package", etc.) and then they make whatever package or
> port they are in charge of for that project.
Of course, being made aware in a timely fashion of new releases would be a
good thing, but isn't that what -announce lists are for? Or is it
anticipation of a new release so you can do a simultaneous release of the
Debian package with a new release of your material that you're aiming at?
Then I suggest a -devel-announce list per package with posts like "Foo beta3
ready for testing", "Final release of Foo, next Friday, assuming all goes
well". This keeps the traffic focused specifically on the particular
package(s) the Debian (or other distro) maintainers would be interested in.
> The intent is to shield the packagers from the project development (except
> when they have bugs to report upstream), keeping them on a relatively
> low-traffic list, and allowing them to package for more than one project.
A noble intent, but falls short of the mark if you have a DD interested only
in a single package, and not necessarily everything your project does.
> I ask this here for two reasons 1) I personally use Debian, and have a
> great affinity to the project 2) I want to see our educational
> applications in Debian Jr.
Much appreciated. :) I want to see your educational applications in Debian
Jr. too.
> If anyone has any questions, or would like to volunteer for this, or if
> anyone has any suggestions about who I should talk to, please feel free to
> let me know.
Sure, my question is simply why you don't say "hey, we have this and that
package here, would someone please package them for Debian Jr.?" which is
best done as an RFP wishlist bug against the wnpp (see
http://www.debian.org/devel/wnpp). That's the usual way of going about
having something added to Debian. When I received this message today and
looked it over I thought "woah, a bit more commitment than I'm ready for".
Maybe it's just the way you've worded it that made it strike me this way and
in reality it's no big deal at all. But perhaps if you had said "anyone
interested in packaging X, Y, or Z? and btw, if you are, it would be nice if
you joined this low-traffic list so we can keep you informed about upcoming
releases" it wouldn't seem quite such a responsibility to participate.
> Thanks in advance.
>
> (BTW, if you're wondering why we don't just supply people to package DEBs
> ourselves, it's because there are only two of us -that I know of-
> currently using Debian and capable of packaging for it. One is myself, the
> other is the current project manager of tuxtype. Since we are both very
> busy already in the project, we would wind up neglecting the other things
> we're in charge of just to do this. Besides, the intention of this "Group"
> infrastructure is to more equally divide up responsibilities, and
> -hopefully- make our projects easier to manage ;-)
But wouldn't much of the list traffic (since you mention ports for other
platforms) of little or no interest to a maintainer only interested in
packaging one of your packages?
Nevertheless, if someone here wishes to join this group, far be it from me
to dissuade you. I'm merely trying to anticipate potential problems with
your request, in case you find that Debian participation isn't what you had
hoped it would be. Perhaps I'm totally off the mark about this, and if so,
I apologize. It's just how it struck me.
Regards,
Ben
--
nSLUG http://www.nslug.ns.ca synrg@sanctuary.nslug.ns.ca
Debian http://www.debian.org synrg@debian.org
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