backports web interface type thing...

[Matthew Nicholson]

I was wondering what, if any interest might exist in creating some sort
of backports web-based sandbox/try out area. i just thought is up and it
might go something like this:

user( via html form) asks for a package to be backported.
package name would be checked against a blacklist of some sort of known
"un-backport-able" packages.
if its in this list, the user gets a "sorry..."
if not, a build is attempted. 
if it fails, the users gets a "sorry" message and the (needed) output to
diagnose the problem, with links to the forum and/or mailing list to get
more help/explanation. 
if it builds clean, the user is notified that all is well.
I figure here, maybe the package would be put in a temp. repo of some
sort, where the user can manually download it (only the package they
requested)if they wish (with warnings etc). a notice would automatically
be sent to the list, saying the build went fine, along with a log of it
all, for final approval, before its gets moved to the "real" backports
repo. 

any comments/ideas? i've done things sort of like this before, so i
might start hacking on soon, since backporting most applications is as
simple as passing a package name to the script. plus then there would be
one central place to request/attempt builds, and users could get "custom
backports", things that build clean but won't be officially backported
due to rules/possible instabilities etc (with loads of warnings of
course).

just an idea i had brewing.