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

[Scott Kitterman]

On 11/14/2011 06:05 AM, Daniel Holbach wrote:
> Hello,
>
> Am 14.11.2011 00:47, schrieb Scott Kitterman:
>> On 11/12/2011 01:08 PM, Allison Randal wrote:
>>> - 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.
>>
>> A web based tool to support publishing and reviewing packages seems
>> somewhat orthogonal to IRC channels to get help packaging.  I think it's
>> premature to shut down REVU until DEBEXPO is a full replacement (the
>> most critical thing for me it was missing last I checked was the ability
>> to give diffs of subsequent uploads of a package with the same
>> version/revision.
>
> While it would be nice for debexpo to have a similar feature, it seems
> more worrying to me that we still advertise a process that is broken and
> we set wrong expectations.
>
> Personally I'd rather like to see REVU closed, the documentation changed
> and for packaging review (or general code review) any VCS be used, where
> you can very easily track changes in packaging, without incrementing
> packaging version numbers.

While I don't do a lot of general "I want this package in Ubuntu" new 
package reviews, I still use REVU whenever I'm working with someone on a 
package that's needed for a specific purpose (e.g. new KDE 
dependencies).  If the problem is unrealistic expectations, then update 
the documentation to set realistic expectations rather than eliminating 
useful tools without suitable replacement.

Scott K