New Official Flavor Process Issues (Was Re: Ubuntu Cinnamon Remix packages)

Thu Jul 28 02:29:27 UTC 2022

I also want to mention that the ubuntu-mentors team is long gone. For new developers, they now have barely any place to start to find sponsors.

New devs who want patches for contributions (and to later apply for privileges) have to jump into #ubuntu-devel (since -motu is dead basically), and nag a person to help them. 80% of that time that person is likely a canonical employee and one who knows literally nothing about the package being tested, has never heard about it or has never tried it.

Speaking of the ubuntu-mentors team, it is also kind of disgusting IMO that I can't find the mailing lists for the team which includes why the team closed. It feels as if it makes open developers feel more closed off.

I know this is not exactly "Technical Board" discussions and this brings up a lot of other issues, but I want to lay the ground as to what we are dealing with.

For the first time, we have community making flavors. And this is community; all flavors that exist are either born because yes, like Kubuntu and Xubuntu in the old days when Ubuntu was young and new. New flavors often have devs who have partners or already have developer status in Debian.

For a new developer like me, it can feel like jumping through hoops. I've had to help maintain the Cinnamon desktop suite in Debian, along with Fabio Fantoni and we do not have upload privileges despite being part of the Debian Cinnamon Team. Kind of makes no sense to me.

Again; I know this is not the proper place to mention these "newcomers" but I just want to show you what the vision currently looks like for me.

-Josh

________________________________
From: eeickmeyer at ubuntu.com
Sent: Wednesday, July 27, 2022 8:21 PM
To: Steve Langasek; technical-board at lists.ubuntu.com; community-council at lists.ubuntu.com
Cc: ubuntu-release at lists.ubuntu.com; itzswirlz2020 at outlook.com
Subject: New Official Flavor Process Issues (Was Re: Ubuntu Cinnamon Remix packages)

Hi Steve,

Your reply brings up a larger discussion which involves not only the
technical board, but also the community council since there are
community implications that need to be addressed as the wiki entry you
referred to is not at all community friendly.

For those just joining the conversation, Ubuntu Cinnamon Remix
(ubuntucinnamon.org), with Joshua Peisach as leader, has been working
on meeting the requirements to become an official flavor for the past 3
years. Joshua has been trying, to the best of his ability, to follow
the requirements posted at <https://wiki.ubuntu.com/RecognizedFlavors>.
I have stepped-up to assist him with my MOTU hat on, but Joshua has run
into numerous roadblocks over the years, and I am seeing his
frustrations as well. It seems as though when he meets a requirement, a
new requirement appears, so that while the goalposts aren't actually
moving in the eyes of those on the technical board, to him it appears
like they are.

Before I proceed any further, I need to note that I have brought this
to the attention of the Community Council, and we agree that this issue
does need to be addressed. Therefore, I write this now as a
representative of the Community Council, with some replies in-line
addressing the packaging concerns.

On Sun, 2022-07-24 at 22:54 -0700, Steve Langasek wrote:
> Hi Erich,
>
> On Sat, Jul 23, 2022 at 07:46:30AM -0700, Erich Eickmeyer wrote:
> > Hi all!
>
> > As many of you know, Ubuntu Cinnamon Remix[1] has been around for
> > around 3 years, consistently following the Ubuntu release cycle. I
> > have
> > volunteered my time to help Joshua Peisach (ItzSwirlz) to bring his
> > required packages into the Ubuntu repositories which, at this
> > point,
> > really only amount to around three source packages:
>
> > ubuntucinnamon-environment:    Mostly the GTK and icon theme
>
> > ubuntucinnamon-artwork:        Plymouth theme, lightdm theme
>
> > ubuntucinnamon-wallpaper:      Wallpapers
>
> > There is also an ubuntucinnamon-meta package which Joshua has been
> > creating manually, but I suspect this should be uploaded later
> > after a
> > germinate seed has been created.
>
> On Sat, Jul 23, 2022 at 09:26:16AM -0700, Erich Eickmeyer wrote:
> > On Sat, 2022-07-23 at 07:46 -0700, Erich Eickmeyer wrote:
> > > There is also an ubuntucinnamon-meta package which Joshua has
> > > been
> > > creating manually, but I suspect this should be uploaded later
> > > after
> > > a
> > > germinate seed has been created.
>
> > I stand corrected, he's using germinate to create the meta. It'll
> > be
> > easy to transition to a proper seed once the flavor is official.
>
> This needs to happen *before* the flavor is recognized as official.
>

If there is a step-by-step process that is undocumented, then this
brings up a point that I'll address below.

> - There is an ubuntucinnamon-meta package, but it's not been in the
> archive
>   until 16 hours ago.  So, never been in any Ubuntu release; and
> currently
>   stuck in -proposed as:
>
>   * ubuntucinnamon-meta (- to 22.07)
>     Migration status for ubuntucinnamon-meta (- to 22.07): BLOCKED:
> Rejected/violates migration policy/introduces a regression
>     Issues preventing migration:
>     ubuntucinnamon-desktop/amd64 has unsatisfiable dependency
>     ubuntucinnamon-desktop/ppc64el has unsatisfiable dependency
>     ubuntucinnamon-desktop/s390x has unsatisfiable dependency

We can get this sorted, and I believe Joshua is already working on it.

>
> - The source package points to github for its seed.  This needs to be
> hosted
>   on Launchpad, and owned by a team of which ~ubuntu-core-dev is a
> member.

There is no documentation anywhere that I know of in this context for
the requirement of the involvement of a member of the ~ubuntu-core-dev
team, so now I'm emploring the technical board to get this sorted,
preferably on some kind of documentation, but not necessarily on
<https://wiki.ubuntu.com/RecognizedFlavors> as I'm not happy with that
wiki entry from a community standpoint. More on this later in this
email.

> - update.cfg in the source package also has a weird mix of impish and
> jammy
>   - and it needs to be kinetic...
>

Joshua has been alerted to this, and I believe he is already working on
this.

> > Anyhow, I'm helping him out with my MOTU hat on to get these
> > packages
> > sponsored and uploaded so that he can *finally* apply for official
> > seed
> > status. So far, I've been impressed as his packaging has been top-
> > notch
> > with just a few lintian issues that I've been helping him clean-up.
>
> > Overall, Ubuntu Cinnamon is of a high-quality that I'd expect of an
> > official Ubuntu flavor, and I will be honored to help usher it in
> > to
> > becoming one.
>
> > With that, expect a few non-Ubuntu Studio or Kubuntu-related
> > uploads
> > coming from me for Archive Admin review as sponsored for this
> > project.
>
> > If any of you have any thoughts on this, let me know, and either
> > myself
> > or Joshua will be happy to answer any questions.
>
> Please also double-check the list on
> <https://wiki.ubuntu.com/RecognizedFlavors>.  Having centralized
> daily
> builds is a precondition of being a recognized release flavor, and to
> turn
> those on requires Technical Board approval (not Release Team).  This
> will
> also need to be implemented in livecd-rootfs, so patches welcome.
>

Thanks for the help, Steve. However, the list in that wiki entry reads
like a checklist for the technical board to follow when considering a
flavor to become officially recognized. That's great and all, but it is
very difficult for a flavor that is attempting to become official,
especially after 3 years of trying, to follow as a guide.

Knowing what needs to happen before something else can happen is not
covered in that wiki page. Therefore, there needs to be a detailed
step-by-step easy-to-read process as I addressed above, and not an all-
inclusive "did they do the right things" checklist. While I understand
the need to keep the bar high here since we don't want to sacrifice
quality, I do need to remind everyone that Ubuntu is about putting the
community first, and that if we're not helping to usher-in potential
new flavors  that *want* to be new flavors, then we're doing a
disservice to our community.

My ask here isn't to lower the requirements, but my ask here is to help
guide people through the requirements so people can actually understand
what they need to do, and when, and in what order. I'd be happy to
assist with this process. Others in the Community Council have
volunteered to help as well so that potential applicants, such as
Joshua, don't have to go through what he's currently going through.

Therefore, on behalf of the Community Council, I charge the technical
board to come up with such a document, posted in an easy-to-find
location, so that unofficial flavors (two currently on my radar include
Ubuntu Cinnamon and Ubuntu Unity) can have a streamlined shot at
becoming official flavors if they so desire. Remember, this is about
putting the community first, and a growing community is a healthy
community, which means allowing and helping new flavors rather than
discouraging them.

----
Erich Eickmeyer
Member, Ubuntu Community Council
Project Leader, Ubuntu Studio
Ubuntu MOTU

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