Re: Packaging GNUstep automatically
Please don't take my mails as definitive answers, I'm just one of many
Debian contributors.
On Thu, Dec 26, 2013 at 11:06 AM, Markus Hitter wrote:
> Packaging is out of the scope of Debian? That's an unexpected response. :-)
You asked about automated packaging, which isn't something we do in
Debian right now AFAIK.
> If I knew where to start, which commands to try, I could tell about what
> isn't working. Instead I can't find a clear path on how to make a
> package, much less on how to automate this. For example, Debian and
> Ubuntu instructions differ drastically. Ubuntu uses "bzr" for
> everything, Debian seems to mainly using "dch", "debuild", "quilt" and
> "dput".
Try maint-guide:
http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/maint-guide/update.en.html#inspectnewupstream
http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/maint-guide/update.en.html#newupstream
bzr is a version control system like git, it is mostly irrelevant to
the packaging part, Ubuntu just use it to store and version-control
their packaging and upstream code. They use everything (except maybe
quilt) that Debian does.
Maybe these graphs can help you understand some parts of the processes:
http://mysite.verizon.net/kevin.mark/debian-package.png
http://mysite.verizon.net/kevin.mark/newdebian2.png
> I feared such an opinion. Packagers apparently think in releases only,
That certainly isn't true since packaging generally necessitates
becoming a software developer who contributes upstream and commits to
version control systems.
> volunteer driven software development no longer does such things.
Personally I think that is a bad idea and is detrimental to the health
of the Free Software community.
> Every commit improves the status
As a gross generalisation; the experience of Debian and other Linux
distributions says that this isn't true, regressions happen, often.
> That said, trying to "train" users is considered a big no-go, we live in
> an iPhone world now. If users are required to build from sources (which
> is currently the case for GNUstep because packages are vintage), you've
> already lost, because they won't even become users, much less
> developers.
Personally I'm glad I live in the world of Debian, copyleft and Free
Software instead of in the iPhone world where user freedom is frowned
upon :)
I can see your point about the progression from the public to a
GNUStep user to a GNUStep contributor though.
> Which trouble? I see only "needs maintainer" multiple times.
Lets see:
http://packages.qa.debian.org/m/meta-gnustep.html
The metapackage isn't in testing because a couple of games have been
removed from testing and the team doesn't appear to have time to
delete a couple of lines in the control file and re-upload.
http://release.debian.org/migration/testing.pl?package=meta-gnustep
http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?which=pkg&data=gnustep-games&sev-inc=critical&sev-inc=grave&sev-inc=serious
gnumail and gnustep-back have unfixed release-critical bugs:
http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?src=gnustep-back&archive=no&pend-exc=pending-fixed&pend-exc=fixed&pend-exc=done&sev-inc=critical&sev-inc=grave&sev-inc=serious
http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?src=gnumail&archive=no&pend-exc=pending-fixed&pend-exc=fixed&pend-exc=done&sev-inc=critical&sev-inc=grave&sev-inc=serious
There are several bugs that haven't been forwarded upstream:
http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?which=maint&data=pkg-gnustep-maintainers%40lists.alioth.debian.org&archive=no&raw=yes&bug-rev=yes&pend-exc=fixed&pend-exc=done
There are some unfixed build failures on GNU/Hurd:
https://buildd.debian.org/status/package.php?p=pkg-gnustep-maintainers%40lists.alioth.debian.org&comaint=yes&compact=yes
There are numerous lintian complaints that are unfixed:
http://lintian.debian.org/full/pkg-gnustep-maintainers@lists.alioth.debian.org.html
There are a number of packages to update, bugs to fix and patches to
merge from Ubuntu:
http://udd.debian.org/dmd/?email1=pkg-gnustep-maintainers@lists.alioth.debian.org
> And that packaging is indeed a rocket science. ;-)
Packaging is definitely not rocket science or even hard, it is just a
lot of work and a lot of things to think about.
--
bye,
pabs
http://wiki.debian.org/PaulWise
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