Working on Ensembl package
Hi,
I tried to handle all our RC bugs in the "Advent Bug Squashing" time and
I admit Ensemble is the hardest one. While hanging around in
experimental/non-free I do consider it not as "second class" package.
However, when looking at the package and its changelog I realised that
it is not maintained according our usual quality requirements. Not only
beeing behind upstream two versions it has more lintian issues than my
xterm scrolls backwards (when using -i -I). That's inacceptable. I
would also like to see the package in main rather than non-free. One
important brick is to close #645487 - which is in principle fixed in SVN
(but needs testing).
However fighting all other issues is quite a lot of work I have several
other changes on my local disk I need to check before commiting. I'd
also consider it a good idea to teach upstream about consistently setting
file permissions and fixing shebang in scripts. Fixing these causes a
lot of complexity in the packaging.
My primary goal is to bring the package into a shape without lintian
errors and warnings (if needed with reasonable overrides) while keeping
packaging directory layout unchanged. Once this is done I will issue a
call for testing. Steffen keeps on mentioning to work on this on the
Debian Med sprint in Southport but I personally do not like to leave
tasks for a later date if it can be done now. There is no point in
waiting to fix problems. I try to add comments in code and SVN commits
to make sure the other ensembl packagers can learn about Debian
standards.
I do not intend to upload the package before I get a confirmation from
an ensembl user that my work is OK. So Steffen, there is no need to be
afraid of breaking something and pointing people to snapshots. BTW, I
wonder whether people *really* are *relaying* on packages in
experimental and do expect that these will not be broken. These people
should probably read a bit more about the role of experimental.
However, I have realised that this is no excuse to break something in an
uncareful way.
I would love if some ensembl users (perhaps using a private mail
address) might engage themselves in a discussion here. Finally we are
discussing about Open Source code which is free for anybody and those
technical issues should be discussed open. I keep on asking for this
all the time for one simple reason: Private discussion simply kills the
chance that other competent people who might spend some time on a
problem can join.
Kind regards
Andreas.
--
http://fam-tille.de
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