Re: {debian,pkg}-science repository [Was: Science linguistics and debian-science SVN repository at alioth]
On Fri, 9 May 2008, Manuel Prinz wrote:
Sorry for jumping a little late into the discussion, hope it's not too
late already!
So far nothing technically has changed - so it is not too late obviousely.
Andreas, I really like your idea on unifying things
related to science in Debian. I also have some packages I work on that
are science related but do not classically match any of the current
tasks.
Well, that's easy create a new task and check it in. Practice will show
whether the tasks are useful or not.
I'd also like to help. To also address my concerns on the name: As
Andreas already said, I also think naming discussions tend to go
nowhere. BUT in this case, I'd really prefer "debian-science" as a name
since I was totally confused about the different "subprojects" as a
user; I also know users who have troubles to get it right. Since most
users already know the debian-science mailing list, their first guess is
a debian-science packaging group under the same name, that does not
exists. I like Sylvestre's pkg-science effort but IMHO Debian is not
about packaging from a user's point of view, and users is what Debian is
for. ("debian-science" is a more user-friendly name, even if it's "just"
about packaging, so to speak. The pkg-* namespace is OK for packages but
IMHO not for a group addressing a certain task.)
This further voice which agrees with my initial proposal forces me to
think that we should go like this: Assume pkg-scicomp is in good shape
and lives in its own nicely (Option 1 of my posting [1]). We are defintely
not trying to compete with their work (competition between such small
groups makes no sense IMH) but establish a cooperation. Installing a
debian-science VCS and move pkg-science stuff in a reasonable hierarchy
there. The fact that people who are actually willing to do the work
prefer git is a further reason not to be sad that there is a pkg-science
which will be droped in favour of debian-science - because it has to
be changed anyway.
The according mailing list should be the maintainer of all the packages
that are checked into this repository and people who are actually working
on those packages put their names under Uploaders. This repository
should be used for all those scientific relevant software that is not
yet team maintained.
(This paragraph should actually be part of the to be written policy which
should be adopted from another teams policy that might fit best. David
suggested [2] which might perhaps supplement Debian Med policy which is
kind of SVN centric.)
I also do care about the VCS. Personally, I'm very happy with Git that I
tried after last DebConf after hearing so much good things about it;
they turned out to be true. ;) The biggest disadvantage with Subversion
is that one can not work effectively when being offline; I also like
Gits branching feature while experimenting with different changes in the
package. Nevertheless, if the choice is Subversion, I can be happy with
that too.
As I said: I did not uses git until today but I'm perfectly willing
to adapt and to learn.
So I did not see a consensus on what needs to be done: Should we start a
new debian-science project on Alioth and move stuff there? I'm not quite
sure if I got the overall plan right and where help is needed... :-/
Well, follow the DoOcracy principle: The doer decides. If I understood
right David Bremner volunteered also to work actively on a repository
with exactly the same preferences like you. So I guess he is not really
unhappy if you start working because he announced to have no time next week.
I would be perfectly happy if we would have a working git repository
ready for injecting packages until end of next week. You might also feel
free to enhance the hierarchy which is given in the tasks files and
is rendered at [3] if you think you have a better idea for a reasonable
structure (feel free to ask for clarification if something remains
unclear).
Kind regards
Andreas (happy to brought this up because I feel that something
interesting might happen soon).
[1] http://lists.debian.org/debian-science/2008/05/msg00056.html
[2] http://pkg-phototools.alioth.debian.org/
[3] http://cdd.alioth.debian.org/science/tasks/
--
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