Packaging Help

[Stephan Hermann]

Moins,

On Thu, 24 Sep 2009 11:01:31 -0400
Scott Kitterman <ubuntu at kitterman.com> wrote:

> More and more, I think packages do need a maintainer.  In Main there
> are teams that generally well maintained.  In Universe we have a
> harder problem.
> 
> I've recently wondered if we should not carry binaries forward from
> the previous release, do an in archive rebuild at the start of each
> debelopment cycle once the toolchain is in place, and then
> automatically remove packages that don't have a successful build
> during the development cycle (and thus have no binaries).  This would
> ensure we don't carry unsupportable cruft into a release.
> 
> I have long thought it was better to bring new packages in through
> Debian. One reason, related to this thread, is that it ensures there
> is some maintainer that is keeping the package up to date.  Perhaps
> we could take packages into Ubuntu with the understanding that if
> they were not in Debian in one or two release cycles they would be
> removed from Ubuntu (unless some special arrangement is made and
> evidence of maintenance in Ubuntu is evident).

I wonder if the agility of Debian matches the agility of Ubuntu?

I agree that we shouldn't go for packages which are done by drive-by
people, or upstream devs who want their software in Ubuntu.

The pro of Ubuntu is that we are mostly a bit faster then debian with
new upstream versions, especially when people from the Ubuntu universe
are interested in those packages.

The worst case scenario we could get:

We will have the very same situation like OpenSuSE Buildservice.

There are sooooo many RPMs build by people without the intention to
provide better software quality for opensuse, but to have at least the
bloody edge software they want (you know, new is better, faster,
higher ;))

The same applies for Ubuntu and the PPAs.
There are some PPAs which have a serious concern, but others (the
most?) are just for "here is our newest release...just grab it from LP
PPA here".

Concentrating on those packages during a development cycle is very bad
for the quality of Universe (and Ubuntu in general), we don't even get
all the merges done in one run.

Regards,

\sh


-- 
| Stephan '\sh' Hermann    | OSS Dev / SysAdmin         |
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