Patch Pilot Report 2011-03-07

[Brian Murray]

On Tue, Mar 08, 2011 at 10:06:44AM +0000, Dave Walker wrote:
> On 08/03/11 02:45, Bryce Harrington wrote:
> <SNIP>
> >719324: ubuntu-geoip - GET should be uppercase
> >         Already approved, uploaded and pushed to bzr trunk
> >
> <SNIP>
> 
> I starting reviewing this one the other day and left it as a
> "Comment" rather than "Needs Fixing".  The proposed branch (now
> merged) edits the upstream code directly, but the package is of
> format 3.0 (quilt).  I admit I should have set a more appropriate
> review type.  Additionally, I commented that perhaps it should be
> contributed directly upstream (particularly as it's a package native
> to Ubuntu), and has a Ubuntu derived Vcs-* field defined in
> debian/control.
> 
> This means that the changes have been generated into an automagic
> patch in debian/patches/debian-changes-0.0.2-0ubuntu5.  Now we have
> a situation where what is in the archive [0], doesn't match what is
> in the UDD branch [1].
> 
> Last week, I had a similar situation where I dput'd and pushed to
> the UDD bzr at the same time, and someone else uploaded the same
> version bump around 10 minutes before me; causing mine to be
> rejected and theirs was now already accepted.
> 
> I was worried about this, so James Westby kindly explained that a
> branch mismatch between the archive and UDD should mean that the
> package-importer uncommits, land the version from the archive and
> raises a merge proposal for the delta (nice!), however there seems
> to be a bug at the moment.  Although, neither the Maintainer, Last
> Uploader or Signer (sponsor) is made aware of it automagically.
> 
> Now, this is a tricky situation because we have three differing
> branches.  Those that normally upload this package are no doubt
> expecting their Vcs-* branch to have trumps, so will continue
> committing there.  If they attempt to upload
> 0.0.2-0ubuntu4_0.0.2-0ubuntu5, they'll become aware that there is a
> difference by their package being rejected.  However, if they were
> to upload a new upstream version, the resolution that this bug was
> trying to address will be lost.
> 
> When I was reviewing this branch, I did try and reconcile the UDD
> ancestor based merge proposal and the ~ubuntu-desktop one, but lack
> of common ancestor and attempting to declare a base rev seemed to
> fail.... and for the small size of the patch, i gave up and
> suggested the merge proposal author rebase against the Vcs-* branch.
> I was tempted to do this myself setting the --author tag
> appropriately, but there is a fine line between trying to be helpful
> (do the right thing), and doing too much.  Equally, I didn't feel
> comfortable committing to another teams branch, as I have commit
> access to lp:~ubuntu-desktop/* through inheritance of teams, rather
> than direct membership... which would mean raising a new merge
> proposal... which takes the original author out of the loop.
> 
> Another issue i'd like to raise that is related is UDD mismatches,
> there is an example here - not a major one, but another minimal
> example is [2].  A merge proposal author has gone to the effort of
> submitting code based on a UDD branch, which is the wrong version as
> the package-import failed; this means that somebody needs to
> reconcile the versions... without a current UDD branch, this is near
> impossible - which means reverting back to traditional development
> by creating a bzr based debdiff to apply to the the flat source...
> meaning that UDD has not won this situation.
> 
> I think what I am trying to raise, is some work flow process...
> 
> * With traditional development, we get a warning if we apt-get
> source and a Vcs-* field is set, with UDD we do not.

I'd wanted to do things the UDD way and got the branch using bzr
lp:ubuntu/ubuntu-geoip and didn't look at the debian control file.  I
think a bzr plugin could help with this by warning the user if there is
some team branch of the package.  Incidentally, team branches
are something I find quite confusing and makes me less likely to
contribute to them.  Finally, I find it somewhat hard to believe that
what amounts to a 3 character change requires this much work from so
many people.

Also in my mind this patch was simple enough that I thought it was worth
fixing in Natty straight away rather than proposing a merge for the
upstream code and waiting for them to create a new package.  (Not so
much because the bug was important but because I think it is beneficial
for the patch author to see something done with their contribution right
away.  Having "your name in lights" is great way to recognize them.)

-- 
Brian Murray
Ubuntu Bug Master
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