Ubuntu Studio (and others) Flavor Status

Wed Mar 13 22:12:26 UTC 2019

Hi Erich,

From my perspective, provided all parties continue to engage earnestly
around this issue, Ubuntu Studio is still on track to be released with
19.04.  There were some challenges at Monday's DMB meeting reaching a
consensus on how to handle Ross's access to the packageset (which now has
had the bugs fixed, so has the expected contents at
http://people.canonical.com/~ubuntu-archive/packagesets/disco/ubuntustudio),
but I understand there is a commitment from the DMB to revisit this question
at their next meeting in 2 weeks' time if not sooner.

On Tue, Mar 12, 2019 at 11:54:13AM -0700, Erich Eickmeyer wrote:
> Now that myself and Ross have been given upload rights to the core packages,
> we are struggling to get Ross upload rights to the packageset. While I can
> understand that need, I could find no evidence of such a high requirement
> outlined in https://wiki.ubuntu.com/RecognizedFlavors. In fact, the only
> requirement I could find that pertains is as follows:

> * One or more developer with upload rights.

I think this is simply a bug in the language.  There was no question in my
mind that the intent of this requirement was to ensure that we were not
treating as "official" any flavors that were not self-sufficient in the
maintenance of what they were releasing.  To me, that means for every
package on the image, the flavor team either has upload rights or has
another maintaining team they can contact who is directly responsible (i.e.:
you don't have to have upload rights on packages in main, because core-dev
is responsible for these on behalf of all flavors).

This is exactly what the flavor packagesets are designed to be, and if we
are having a problem getting even one of a flavor's developers upload rights
on the flavor packageset, then something has to give.  Either the definition
of the packageset should be adjusted to exclude packages belonging to other
flavors (which was one proposal at the DMB meeting), or the DMB should relax
their standard for uploaders to have flavor packageset rights, or we should
not release the flavor.

I realize that you are arguing for a fourth option, which is that the TB
should relax its standards instead.  But IMHO this is the least correct,
because it sweeps under the rug the very real problem of maintainability of
the flavor, which the TB has determined is important.

BTW, you also refer to having been given upload rights to the "core"
packages.  But there is no such distinction between "core" and non-core
packages in a flavor, from the point of view of a packageset.  There may be
some packages that are Ubuntu-specific and exclusively maintained by the
flavor developers, but these are not the only packages about which we are
making promises to our community by including them in an official flavor,
and we cannot assume that a package being maintained in Debian automatically
translates to it being in good shape in Ubuntu.

There are over 400 source packages that are seeded on the Ubuntu Studio DVD
but not on any other flavor images.[1]  Can you appreciate that it's
important to ensure that these packages are well-maintained in Ubuntu if
they are going to be part of an officially-recognized flavor?

> That does not specify in what form those upload rights must be.  Granted,
> it would be easy to change the phrasing on that requirement, but then that
> requirement could unnecessarily push Ubuntu Studio and Ubuntu Budgie from
> both being recognized flavors, as Ubuntu Budgie is in a similar situation
> at the moment.

> So, with this, I would like to plea that the Technical Board not to set
> that bar so high that it kills one or more official flavors that are both
> active in development.  I believe that such an action would harm the
> Ubuntu community irreparably.  For example, Ubuntu Studio is planning a
> 20.04 LTS release, and if 19.04 is not allowed to be released, even if
> 19.10 is allowed, Ubuntu Studio 20.04 would not be allowed to be an LTS
> due to this requirement:

The intention is not to kill the flavors, but to bring them into compliance.
I still believe that is achievable and that should be our first priority.

Thanks,
-- 
Steve Langasek                   Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS
Debian Developer                   to set it on, and I can move the world.
Ubuntu Developer                                   https://www.debian.org/
slangasek at ubuntu.com                                     vorlon at debian.org

[1] $ grep-dctrl -n -sSource:Package -FTask ubuntustudio \
	-a '!' -FTask ubuntu- -a '!' -FTask ubuntukylin \
	/var/lib/apt/lists/archive.ubuntu.com_*disco_*amd64_Packages \
	| sort -u  | wc -l
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 833 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/technical-board/attachments/20190313/92c54581/attachment.sig>