Packaging branches which are not owned by ubuntu-dev

[Alexander Sack]

On Thu, Aug 28, 2008 at 12:43:24AM +0900, Emmet Hikory wrote:
> Mario Limonciello wrote:
> > So the use case here was going to be that someone from
> > ubuntu-universe-sponsors would be able to uploads in the absence of a MOTU
> > on the team to do the uploads in a timely fashion.  I now believe that the
> > only solution here is that the uploads be prepared in the bzr tree by the
> > team and then either attach a debdiff to the bug or request that the tree
> > get pulled and uploaded.
> 
>     That makes much more sense to me.  The sponsor oughtn't need to
> change the package when sponsoring it (else it becomes collaborative
> development rather than sponsoring: not that this is discouraged, but
> it is different).  As long as members of the team maintaining the
> package have an accurate tree ready for upload (or follow the more
> typical (and more widely documented) practice of attaching the debdiff
> to a bug), there ought be no issues sponsoring the update in the
> regular manner.  Further, as long as the launchpad teams are not
> diluted, it becomes simple for the sponsor to verify that the packager
> belongs to the relevant non-MOTU team, and should thereby be trusted
> to have prepared the upload (although this practice isn't documented,
> I tend to follow it when reviewing packages where sponsorship is
> requested but the maintainer is not MOTU).
> 

Also, in emergency cases where there is _no_ team member reachable
(which should be quite rare) and an upload has to happen right now any
ubuntu-dev can create a branch for that upload in a different location
as long as you let the team know. For instance, by requesting a merge
to the teams tree in launchpad.


 - Alexander