On Debian/Ubuntu bzr packages

[Adeodato Simó]

* Martin Pool [Wed, 02 Jan 2008 13:46:48 +1100]:

> So, everything Adeodato says below makes good sense to me.  I'm not
> quite clear on concretely what you want to do though: how will we
> coordinate your packages with getting packages for Ubuntu,

For Ubuntu packages in the development version (hardy atm), they're
updated automatically, until the DVF (Debian Version Freeze, or however
it is called). If during that freeze bzr needs to get special treatment,
some Ubuntu core developer would need to fetch from sid and upload by
hand.

For prior versions of Ubuntu, somebody would need to be responsible of
uploading newer versions to PPA. This task is basically what Robert is
taking care of at the moment.

They can be notified of new versions by subscribing to [this rss
feed][1], or to [the PTS][2] if they prefer mail.

  [1] http://packages.qa.debian.org/b/bzr/news.rss20.xml
  [2] http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/developers-reference/ch-resources.en.html#s-pkg-tracking-system

Only Dapper needs special treatment, that I'm aware of, since the
packaging needs to be different, but I believe Robert has already
applied a patch, so the work is done already.

> and how can
> we make sure someone else can step up if you cannot do a particular
> release, without wasted work?

The situation now is better than in the past, because now bzr et al. are
team-maintained by the pkg-bazaar group in alioth.debian.org, which
means more people should be available to make the uploads to Debian,
e.g. siretart (I mention him since I've seen him do actual uploads in
the recent past). Other members include Jelmer, Wouter, James Westby and
Robert. And there is the normal NMU procedure in Debian as well.

If nobody is up to preparing packages for Debian, then you obviously
need to find somebody to prepare the packages (but packaging a new
upstream version is mostly trivial most of the time), and at that point
it'd be their choice whether to upload to Debian as well, or only to
PPA.


I'm not sure if I've addresses all your concers, but at this point it'd
be a matter of talking to Robert, and checking if there'd be more people
interested in taking care of PPA, having Robert act e.g. as a backup if
the package flow from Debian stops.

Cheers,

-- 
Adeodato Simó                                     dato at net.com.org.es
Debian Developer                                  adeodato at debian.org
 
                 Listening to: Linda Scott - I've Told Every Little Star