Packaging Help

[Scott Kitterman]

On Mon, 21 Sep 2009 16:17:01 +0200 Daniel Holbach 
<daniel.holbach at ubuntu.com> wrote:
>Hello everybody,
>
>a few days ago I had a chat with Celso Providelo from the Launchpad
>Soyuz team who is getting requests for help with packaging every now and
>then. While the Soyuz team links to Ubuntu Packaging information already
>([1], [2]), they still get requests for help and are in no really good
>position to advise on some topics.
>
>As everything that lands in PPAs benefits Ubuntu and might land in
>Ubuntu eventually, I think it'd be great if we could find out how we can
>help there. Some Upstream developers are already packaging new upstream
>releases for testing, etc. so it'd be fantastic if we could find a way
>to get in touch and help them understand how Ubuntu development
>processes work and get them involved more directly.
>
>I see this as a huge opportunity and would appreciate your thoughts on
>how we can make this happen in a pain-free manner.
>
>[1] https://help.launchpad.net/Packaging
>[2] https://help.launchpad.net/Packaging/PPA/BuildingASourcePackage
>
>Have a great day,
> Daniel
>
>PS: When you reply, please keep Celso CCed.

I see the sense of the theory, but PPAs are built on Ubuntu, not part of 
Ubuntu.  Much as development on Ubuntu is offtopic in #ubuntu-devel, I 
don't think this is something we have the resources to take on.

When I look at http://revu.ubuntuwire.org/ I have no doubt that we have not 
nearly the developer resources to adequately work with people actively 
working to get software into Ubuntu.  When I look at 
http://people.ubuntuwire.org/~wgrant/rebuild-ftbfs-test/test-rebuild-20090909.html 
it is very clear that we have severe problems with our existing packages 
that are not being addressed due to lack of developers to do/sponsor the 
work.  I'm sure I don't need to review the sponship queues for you.

Ultimately, PPAs are a Launchpad product, not Ubuntu.  I think they are a 
very useful tool and am glad to have them, but there is no way we can 
support helping out everyone who tries to use them.

Scott K

P.S. This won't be a suprise for Celso, we've had this conversation before.