Re: Added README.source to our group policy.
Le Thu, Nov 13, 2008 at 10:42:37AM +0100, Daniel Leidert a écrit :
>
> IMHO this is a misuse of this file. The contents of README.source should
> point to unusual/uncommon source handling, including source parts, which
> have been removed, repackaged or put together, patch management systems
> and maybe information related to multiple/special builds. But your
> template does not fit any of these categories. Instead it doubles the
> information from the already existing Vcs* control fields and
> debian/copyright. So I think, that the last paragraph of section 4.14 of
> the policy doesn't apply here (IMHO *buildpackage tools are not the
> target of this sentence, as they are not necessary to modify the
> source). As long as this package is maintained by a group of people,
> they can agree to some policy internally. But such a group policy nor
> the VCS usage do not apply to NMUs nor new maintainers (if this package
> gets orphaned). So I think, putting this information into README.source
> is wrong.
Hi Daniel,
In theory, nobody should NMU Debian Med's packages, as we are very active and
usually repsond to emails within a day.
In practice, self-appointed "NMUers" do not care and rush on low-hanging
fruits, introducing discrepancies between the Debian archive and our
repository and elevating our work load for no global benefit.
I therefore think that it is necessary to document somewhere:
- That a package is group-maintained and that it follows some packaging rules.
- That all NMUers have write access to our repository and we expect them to
commit their changes if they are so disappointed by us that they think that
the only way to solve a problem is to ignore us and NMU the package.
So yes, README.source is supposed to be useless regardless of its content for
packages that are actively maintained, but unfortunately Debian sociology is
such as the only way to communicate with people who refuse to contact the
maintainer nor to use the delayed queue for their upload is to write a message
in a file, and README.source seems to me the least unappropriate.
How about the following modification:
Index: policy.xml
===================================================================
--- policy.xml (revision 2667)
+++ policy.xml (working copy)
@@ -279,11 +279,11 @@
</sect2>
<sect2>
<title><filename>debian/README.source</filename></title>
- <para>This file is recommended by the Policy (<ulink url="http://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-source.html#s-readmesource";>§ 4.14</ulink>) from version 3.8.0 for documenting source package handling. You can start from the following template, and add other necessary informations about patch systems and sources in other format than gzipped tar achive:
+ <para>This file is recommended by the Policy (<ulink url="http://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-source.html#s-readmesource";>§ 4.14</ulink>) from version 3.8.0 for documenting source package handling. You can add the following template to any other necessary informations about patch systems and sources in other format than gzipped tar achive:
<literallayout>
This package is maintained by the Debian Med packaging team. Please refer to
-our group policy if you would like to commit to our Subversion repository. All
-Debian developpers have write acces to it.
+our group policy and commit your changes to our Subversion repository, which is
+write-accessible to all Debian developpers.
http://debian-med.alioth.debian.org/docs/policy.html
</literallayout>
It only invites to add the template in the cases where README.source is
recommended by the Policy, and the wording of the template has been adapted to
make it clearer that we request a commit.
If other members disagree that a commit would be welcome (bear in mine
super-busy NMUers do not event bother sending debdiffs to the NMU'ed bug when
it is too trivial, which is of course the case for low-hanging fruits), I can
remove the paragraph. But personnally I will keep it in the packages I consider
myself as main responsible.
Have a nice day,
--
Charles Plessy
Debian Med packaging team,
Tsurumi, Kanagawa, Japan
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