Re: Guidance for a Newbie wanting to contribute to Debian
On Sat, Apr 19, 2014 at 7:25 AM, Jeremy Davis wrote:
> So as TurnKey is based on Debian
It might be interesting for TurnKey to join the Debian derivatives census:
https://wiki.debian.org/Derivatives/Census
> it seems like a no brainer to get involved with Debian more closely.
> But even after reading tons of info about Debian development and the
> Debian community I am still unclear on the best path to take;
> especially as I want to provide the best value for TurnKey; but
> without making theDebian contribution just all about TurnKey (i.e. I
> don't want it to be a disingenuous contribution to Debian).
A great way to find out things that need your help is to install the
Debian how-can-i-help package on a TurnKey system and look at its
output after apt upgrades and also run it and look at its full output.
> We have a number of applications that we have developed that ultimately
> we'd like to contribute back to the Debian repos. We package these
> already but they are only available via our repo.
Information about getting new packages into Debian is here:
http://mentors.debian.net/intro-maintainers
> We also have a fork of a existing package that we'd like to contribute
> the modifications back upstream (I guess perhaps that needs to go all
> the way back upstream rather than just patch the Debian version?)
Best to send things all the way upstream indeed, as our Social
Contract encourages:
https://www.debian.org/social_contract
If anything needs doing on the Debian side, report a bug about it:
https://www.debian.org/Bugs/Reporting
> We have a couple of other third party apps which we package for our own
> use which we could perhaps contribute to Debian.
Information about getting new packages into Debian is here:
http://mentors.debian.net/intro-maintainers
> Personally I don't have a lot of experience packaging apps although I
> have used checkinstall to create debs for my own use. The existing
> Turnkey Linux packages are made by Alon and Liraz (our core devs) but I
> would be the one doing the bulk of the workload for our involvement with
> Debian.
Start with the packaging tutorial and proceed to maint-guide:
https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/packaging-tutorial/packaging-tutorial.pdf
https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/maint-guide/
If you encounter jargon, you can look it up here:
https://wiki.debian.org/Glossary
> -Where should I start?
http://mentors.debian.net/intro-maintainers
> -Should I first get involved and help with an existing package that our
> distro uses? (I notice that there are a few RFH on packages that we include)
This would be a great start, how-can-i-help can guide you towards more
ways to get involved.
> -Should I just jump straight in and start packaging our own apps for
> inclusion in Debian?
Yes, definitely.
> -Any other suggestions on where would be the best place to start?
You might like to browse our list of teams for places to get involved:
https://wiki.debian.org/Teams
Especially the Cloud team might be interesting to you:
https://wiki.debian.org/Cloud
--
bye,
pabs
http://wiki.debian.org/PaulWise
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