pyjamas (and dependent) packaging: examples of failure of ubuntu packaging and development process

[Neal McBurnett]

On Fri, Jul 09, 2010 at 08:06:26PM +0200, Fabrice Coutadeur wrote:
> Hi Philip,
> 
> Focusing on pyjamas...

Thanks :)

> 2010/7/4 Philip Hands <phil at hands.com>:
> > Given that it's a quilt based package, perhaps Ubuntu could have an
> > Ubuntu specific patch that (as a temporary fix) would prevent the
> > building of pyjamas-desktop, thus allowing the rest of the package to be
> > built. Simply removing the section of debian/control relating to
> > pyjamas-desktop would presumably do the trick.
> 
> In the removal bug, webkit is also mentioned as a possible dependency.
> I've played a bit and found the line that should be patched to use
> webkit by default.

For reference, here is the bug, opened April 21 and closed later that
day, shortly before Lucid release.

  https://bugs.edge.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/pyjamas/+bug/567819

It does make me wonder what the rest of the timeline was for the
related packages, and how we could identify issues like this earlier
in the cycle and have time/mechanism to consult with upstream about
various alternative resolutions.

> What would be the less worst solution? Remove the pyjamas-desktop
> package or make it use the Ubuntu's webkit?
> 
> I've seen that the package has been synced in Maverick, so let's try
> to fix it in Maverick first.

Good idea.

After that is it still possible to fix the bug in Lucid and get at
least most of pyjamas et al back in the repositor?

Cheers,

Neal McBurnett                 http://neal.mcburnett.org/