Re: Maintaining non-med packages in the team only to satisfy dependencies
Hi Pierre,
On Fri, May 29, 2020 at 11:48:39PM +0200, Pierre Gruet wrote:
>
> Lastly I have begun packaging Java software needed as dependencies of
> snpeff, that we would need in Debian Med as it is related to genes and
> proteins.
At first I'd like to say thanks a lot for this.
> I have thus worked on a Java library related to cdf, pdf and random
> variates generation: libdistlib-java. It is currently in NEW.
> Now I am looking at the packaging of apfloat, a Java software to perform
> computations with arbitrary precision. I have just seen it needs another
> Java software not yet in Debian, aparapi, allowing to execute Java code
> on a GPU.
>
> I am willing to package them, but my question (maybe naive as from a
> newcomer) is the following: is it reasonable to do this packaging work
> in the team as those software obviously have a scope larger than ours?
> Should we offer other teams (for instance, Debian Science for
> libdistlib-java) to host the packaging in a way that would be more
> formal than only submitting the ITP bug and waiting for reactions?
> This would not necessarily mean waiting the other team to do the
> packaging, but maybe to put their ID in the Maintainer field of
> debian/control if they want.
For picking a team there is no real right or wrong. As I recently wrote
here[1] we should assemble all biology / medicine related software no
matter what language it is written in, here. But also to this rule
exceptions exist.
We have a very "bad" example for generic software in Debian Med team
which is libzstd which is now even on boot disks. I'd love to get rid
of this here - but there is no other place and it was initially
maintained by a Debian Med member.
I think the decision where to maintain involves also some gut feeling.
I usually decide based on the chances I see to get the best maintenance.
Its better to get mails about RC bugs via the channels you usually read
instead of just getting information that your final target package will
be removed from testing due to RC bugs somewhere else.
> Of course we in Debian Med will do the maintenance effort as we need
> those software (e.g. for snpeff, which we want to have in Debian), but
> don't you think that other teams could blame us for working on packages
> that would logically be maintained by them?
There is no "blame" about this. Teams like Debian Med and Debian
Science are working closely together. There is no real competition
about who maintaines what.
> I imagine you already have an opinion on that, and I would be interested
> in the rationale.
For you as a newcomer I'd recommend to stay in a team where you are
comfortable with. Finally packages can be moved between teams if
needed. I'm personally reading Debian Science list but not with the
same frequence as the Debian Med list. So if you want a quick response
from me, just maintain it here. If you rather want to meet people in
Debian Science which can be interesting, just do it there (and may be
CC me in mails to be save to get quick response). Both is fine.
> Thanks for reading, and have a very nice week-end,
Same to you
Andreas.
[1] https://lists.debian.org/debian-med/2020/05/msg00236.html
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