Massive sync and rebuild of packages? The case of OCaml

[James Westby]

On Fri, 2009-06-12 at 18:14 +0200, David MENTRE wrote:
> Hello James,
> 
> On Fri, Jun 12, 2009 at 16:55, James Westby<jw+debian at jameswestby.net> wrote:
> >>  * Is Ubuntu infrastructure is providing capabilities for doing such
> >> massive rebuild of packages, in several rounds?
> >
> > Yes, it's called "Ubuntu developers".
> 
> :-) "I don't want to be an Ubuntu developer!" :-D
> 
> More seriously, until now, all the hard work is done in Debian by
> Debian developers (of whom I'm not) and the only need is to
> synchronize & rebuild the packages with the right timing. If I need to
> be an Ubuntu developer to do that, I'll look at it seriously.

You need an Ubuntu developer to upload the change. If that was you then
it would be a whole lot easier, but you may be able to convince a
few to help you out.

(And I do suggest that you find the lists of packages and speak to
some developers to help you, and then trying to do them in batch, rather
than proposing each individually, as that will be a whole lot slower)

> >>  * Is it possible to import on demand a set of source packages that
> >> would need a source upload?
> >
> > What do you mean by "import on demand"?
> 
> I mean import a set of source packages from Debian Sid to Karmic that
> are known to have been changed and are needed for the transition from
> 3.11.0 to 3.11.1. This import should be done at a certain date, i.e.
> after the corresponding change is made in Debian.

Yep, we call that a "sync":

  https://wiki.ubuntu.com/SyncRequestProcess

Getting a developer to look over a list of packages and approve them on
mass, then passing that list to a co-operative archive admin could save
you on quite some work if there are a lot of packages (more than 20 
say).

> >>  * The Debian Import Freeze is set to the 25th of June and the Partner
> >> Upload Deadline is set to the 13th of August. So the window is quite
> >> short. The transition should be initiated in Debian before migrating
> >> into Ubuntu.  Do you think it is wise to make such a transition right
> >> now or it would be better to wait until Karmic+1?
> >
> > I'm not sure why you picked those deadlines out. Earlier is better, but
> > I don't think it has to be before those particular deadlines.
> 
> I picked up those dates from my own reading and understanding of the
> wiki and messages of this list. I'm glad to hear that I have a little
> more margin.

Getting it done by Feature Freeze would definitely be a good idea, but 
bear in mind that the period just prior to that is very busy, so finding
those co-operative developers might be harder.

Also, if it's looking like it will slip past Feature Freeze then talking
to the release team would be a good idea.

Thanks,

James