REVU, #ubuntu-packaging, and mentors.debian.org

[Allison Randal]

Hi all,

One of my workitems coming out of UDS is to make a proposal here on the
list, based on the discussion in the session.

- Last cycle, we edited the Ubuntu packaging documentation to encourage
submitting new packages upstream to Debian first. All agreed that this
was good for both Debian and Ubuntu.

- The suggestion from the room was to close REVU now, and change the
documentation to point new packagers at #ubuntu-packaging and
#ubuntu-motu. It's not helpful to new developers to have a site running
and all the documentation saying to submit their packages there, when
they aren't going to get help there. The IRC channels are active, and a
good place to get help on packaging, and to get to know the Ubuntu
developers who might sponsor the new package, or advise the packager to
submit it to Debian instead.

- As a longer-term step, talk with the developers of DebExpo
(mentors.debian.net) about some features to enable downstream
derivatives like Ubuntu to work directly in what would probably be
renamed to mentors.debian.org. This could be as simple as adding some
new tags, but could potentially involve some more advanced handling of
non-Debian source packages, or integration with external services (e.g.
Ubuntu PPAs).


We've been talking about this off and on for a few months on
ubuntu-devel, and in many ways the conversation at UDS just summed up
that wider conversation. The main "mental shift" is in ordering: shut
down the old right away, then grow the new process. What do you all
think? Thoughts, comments, or suggestions?

Allison