Re: Request for support and upload

[Felix Natter <fnatter@gmx.net>]

"W. van den Akker" <wvdakker@wilsoft.nl> writes:

> Hi Felix,

hello Willem!

> I have finished the freemind package and upgraded it to 1.0.0~rc4.
> Can you take a look and report your findings?

I can take a look at it since I packaged a similar software (Freeplane).

> After I have finished it I would ask you to upload the package.

I am not a Debian developer so I cannot upload the package.

> I also migrated the repository to git.
> You can find it http://anonscm.debian.org/git/pkg-java/freemind.git

I think you meant to refer to this:
  http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=pkg-java/freemind.git

Some early comments (I am not a packaging expert, but I know
Freeplane/FreeMind well):

- it is best practice to include the complete (stable) source code
  in the Debian git archive and use multiple branches, see:
  https://wiki.debian.org/Java/JavaGit#Import_upstream,
  http://honk.sigxcpu.org/projects/git-buildpackage/manual-html/gbp.html
  (git-import-orig / gbp import-orig)

  => otherwise you can't use gbp buildpackage (git-buildpackage) to
  build this.
  (you should verify this locally first, and only push it once "gbp
  buildpackage -us -uc" works)

  => tell me if you need more help with this!

- you don't build the openmaps-viewer integration
  => looks like we'll get the jmapviewer package ready for 1.0:
     http://josm.openstreetmap.de/ticket/8747     

- you want to depend on a recent simplyhtml (>=0.16.07),
  because Christian has included a fix in master for it

- you may want to depend on a recent libjgoodies-forms-java(>=1.6.0),
  since you've included a patch that I think only works with >=1.6.0
  (just guessing, my freeplane libgoodies patch requires 1.6.0)

- you most probably don't want to upload RC4, just the final 1.0.0
  version.  In the mean time, upload to sponsors so people here can more
  easily review your package:
  https://mentors.debian.net/intro-maintainers

=> concerning debian/watch: you are using custom "code", you may want
to use a simple url (the "sourceforge redirector"), since you won't be
packaging RC4, but just 1.0.0. Here is an example for simplyhtml:

version=3
opts=uversionmangle=s/_/./g,dversionmangle=s/\+dfsg\d*// \
	http://sf.net/simplyhtml/SimplyHTML_src_(\d+[._]\d+[._]\d+)\.tar.gz

(you may not need the u/dversionmangle)

- you may want to try to get some patches included upstream,
  that way you won't have to maintain them!
  => i.e. upgrade master to libjgoodies-forms-java 1.6/1.7!

- "use OpenJDK (or Sun's Java), and check freemind(1) for more
  information."
   => you should write that it doesn't work with OpenJDK6, at least
  Freeplane's swing layouting sometimes has problems with it.

- you _may_ want to convert the man page to XML (currently SGML)
  http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/maint-guide/dother.en.html#manpagexml
  (I have much better experience with it: the formatting works better)

- concerning debian/copyright:
  - you may want to put yourself in as Upstream-Contact:, if you are
    involved upstream
  - seems it doesn't match the grammar, you can check the file using
   "cme check dpkg-copyright"  (install libconfig-model-perl and
     libconfig-model-dpkg-perl packages)
  (you can also do "cme check dpkg-control" which will check debian/control)

- you should update README.source

- have you fixed all lintian warnings?
  => see maint-guide

I will try to build it on the weekend, maybe you can import the source
into git before?

Best Regards and Good Luck,
-- 
Felix Natter