New software created for Ubuntu

[Dmitrijs Ledkovs]

On 1 May 2010 11:39, Raphael Hertzog <hertzog at debian.org> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> On Sat, 01 May 2010, Elliot Murphy wrote:
>> I want to fix things so it's easier to have desktopcouch in Debian. Sorry
>> for the big delays in responding. Ken forwarded your mails to me last week
>> but I was busy working on Ubuntu 10.04 release. Now that is completed I want
>> to help with desktopcouch and CouchDB and Erlang in debian. I like to push
>> code upstream whenever possible, for example Rodrigo has proposed
>> couchdb-glib as part of Gnome.
>
> Great!
>
>> Do you think Ubuntu One music store and file syncing client software would
>> also be welcome in Debian?
>
> Speaking for myself, I would like to try out the new ubuntu software
> without having to build from source and/or without trying in a VM.
> So for me they are welcome.
>
> It might impose some small constraints from the beginning (branding should
> be vendor-specific for example, much like what's done in debian-installer)
> but otherwise should be painless to integrate in Debian: there's no reason
> to have opposition on new software, people are free to not use them.
>
> But do you have Debian developers on your team so that you're able to
> upload new packages to Debian ?
>
> (Another recent case has been the software center, it could have been
> pushed in Debian from the start)
>
> Cheers,

I'm GSoC student working on Ubuntu usb-creator. It is a general
software and I don't see any reason why it cannot be Debian
branded as well e.g. Debian USB Creator.

I've updated packaging to be lintian clean & it builds fine in sid pbuilder.

Although usb-creator is much smaller application than software
center, does it make sence to push changes to Debian as well?

With software and themes developed for Ubuntu we would still want to reveal it
in Ubuntu first =) otherwise we are "loosing" our competitive edge over Debian.

The idea is to keep high quality packaging suitable for both distributions and
derivatives. But I have some ubuntu->debian "policy" questions:

1) Numbering schemes

   Ubuntu        Debian
1  NNN           NNN-1
2  NNN-0ubuntu1  NNN-1
3  NNN-1+ubuntu1 NNN-1~debian1
3  NNN           NNNdebian1

Generally during development we want to keep our version number higher then
debian and avoid having these packages popping up in Merge-o-Matic. Also during
development cycle these packages will have frequent uploads and probably
considered experimental by debian quality standards. So which version numbering
scheme shall we use?

2) watch file pointing to orig.tar.* archive.ubuntu.com to play nice with PTS

3) "upstream" bugtracker being launchpad project and/or ubuntu package on
launchpad

4) translations export

These type of projects are generally translated by Ubuntu Translation Group and
uploaded into the archive independently of the tarballs via langpacks. I don't
believe launchpad can drop ubuntu translations onto upstream project branches
yet. So when creating a release for debian a tarball needs to be cut with
translation export from Rosetta or translations should be packaged as a separate
tarball component for debian with dpkg-vendor magic.

5) Branding

Images, icons, desktop files, documentations and references to distro name.

All images either replaced at build time or use XDG icon/theme spec and
substitute vendor name in desktop files/documentation/ui at build time?

Or keep it neutral? Cause with these packages Ubuntu building strong brand
identity and we would want to keep it like that.

Also what about debian users who want Ubuntu branding and vice versa?
dpkg-reconfigure magic? We also have Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Studio etc.... Do they
need branded Software Centers or Usb Creators?

6) Maintainance

Keep bzr-buildpackage branches on launchpad with a debian branch to merge fixes
such that we can build both ubuntu & debian branded packages painlessly and
merge changes easily.

7) Release schedule

On ubuntu 0-day upload to debian 15-day delay queue?

With regards,

Dmitrijs.