Re: Question for all candidates: Importance of unofficial archives
On Sun, Mar 04, 2007 at 12:50:22PM +0100, Martin Zobel-Helas wrote:
> Hi,
>
> this question is for all candidates:
>
> How important are unofficial archives[1] for you?
They are important, as they allow people to do stuff with their Debian
installation that isn't necessarily possible with Debian proper because
either Debian does not want to provide whatever the unofficial archives
provide, or because Debian can not provide that (for legal or practical
reasons).
> What whould you do to support them, if you consider them important?
It could make sense to add some of these currently non-official archives
to the official debian.org mirror network. However, this would have to
be decided on a case-by-case basis.
> What could be done to integrate them into official Debian structure?
Many things, most of which have already been implemented for some of
these non-official archives:
* check signatures on uploads against the Debian keyring, so that they
can be done by any Debian Developer
* mention their existance on the official Debian website and in
user-level documentation
* integrate them in automatic checking tools, such as the automated
lintian checking on lintian.debian.org, or the DDPO ("developer.php")
* eventually, if there is sufficient demand for this, create a suite on
debian.org to mirror them on official Debian mirrors
The last step, however, isn't something that should be done lightly, and
should probably come with necessary code patches, if any, provided by
the people asking for the inclusion of the non-official archive.
--
Fun will now commence
-- Seven Of Nine, "Ashes to Ashes", stardate 53679.4
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