Re: How much interest in a "debian-science.org" repository?
Michael Hanke wrote:
> On Wed, Jul 19, 2006 at 12:07:40PM -0400, Kevin B. McCarty wrote:
>> Dear list,
>>
>> Currently there are a fair number of repositories of science-related
>> unofficial Debian packages out there. I've been thinking that it might
>> make sense to consolidate them into a single site. This would have
>> several advantages:
> - snip -
>
> I think this is a great idea and Debian-science community could gain a
> lot with this central repository. But IMHO its success might depend
> on the details:
>
>
>
> 1. What Debian versions will be supported (or what Debian derivatives)?
>
> I maintain some unofficial packages related to experimental psychology
> and MRI data analysis. From user feedback and the download stats I know
> that people seem use my packages with sarge, etch and Ubuntu breezy and
> dapper more or less equally often. Moreover, a single lab often uses a
> mixture of the above. Therefore I try to provide binary packages for all
> those distributions.
>
> Perhaps this is just a special case, but it might be similar with other
> packages.
>
> I know that some people simply do not care about Ubuntu, but there is
> obviously a demand and most of the time porting a package to an Ubuntu
> release is just recompiling it.
>
> What I want to say is, that I would prefer a repository that provides
> packages for every distribution and platform that people (maintainers)
> are willing to support.
Well, in terms of Ubuntu, I think we (Ubuntu Science team) could perhaps
help out. Right now, in Debian proper, I'd say about 1 in 10 packages
from Debian need to get tweaked (mostly dependencies) to work on Ubuntu.
Otherwise the Debian source packages are just rebuilt. If this idea
takes off I'd imagine we could get some Ubuntu build machines. I'm not
sure if it would work (or even be wanted) to put them all in the same
repo though.
> 2. What are the requirements a package has to meet to be included in the
> repository (e.g. license)?
>
> If a package is perfect in any sense it could obviously go directly
> into the Debian archive. Therefore the repository will contain
> imperfect packages and the question is what kind of imperfection is
> tolerated (lintian error, minor/major licensing issues, ...)?
I'm guessing the imperfection would be mostly that the packages are
experimental in nature or have licensing problems. On the other hand, it
could be that the package authors simply never tried to put them in
Debian, I don't know.
> 3. Who will be able to upload packages?
>
> If only DDs are able to upload packages the number of contributors is
> (unecessarily?) limited. But if the Debian-science repository aims to provide
> the same quality and security as the main archive, there is no way around it.
>
> If the repository is intended to be more open than the Debian archive,
> and I think it should be, then I see two possibilities:
>
> 1. Everybody gets upload rights. This is simple, but might be the source
> of serious trouble.
>
> 2. Perhaps a procedure similar to Alioth would be a reasonable way to deal
> with upload rights: Potential contributers explain what they want to
> provide and get upload rights if they provide a solid explanation.
> From that point on they have the right to upload new packages, but
> not to upload new versions of packages already in the archive where
> they are not (co-)maintainers. DDs might be an exception of the rule.
> This should not limit the number of contributors and introduces a
> minimal protection against bad guys.
>
> The main disadvantage is that somebody has to implement this.
Maybe looking at other projects such as mentors.debian.net or even
Ubuntu's REVU system might help.
-Jordan Mantha
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