Getting new packages into Ubuntu

[Barry Warsaw]

On Oct 10, 2011, at 12:33 PM, Scott Kitterman wrote:

>Generally for new packages I find it easier to see changes in both together
>as, more than once, I've dealt with an upstream developer who was trying to
>roll a correct upstream tarball for a proper release as well as get the
>packaging right in parallel.

I'd say that even for existing packages, I find it much nicer to deal with
full source than just debian/.  I do the former mostly with Ubuntu packages
and the latter mostly with Debian packages, and I personally find the UDD way
the nicest of the options.

>I don't think our current VCS situation is fast enough or easy enough to use 
>to be a replacement for REVU.  While I use /debian VCS branches in Kubuntu (a 
>lot), I don't find they work very well for new packages.  YMMV, of course.

Agreed that for some packages and/or personal development environments,
Ubuntu's packaging branches (i.e. UDD) isn't yet convenient, fast, or easy
enough to use.  Improving those issues is (I believe) very high up on the
udd/bzr team's agenda.  I highly encourage interested folks[1] to engage[2]
with that team and help make it better.  Especially with coming Launchpad
integration features such as build-from-branch-into-ppa and -into-archive, I
think this will make for a very compelling and much easier workflow for
developing Ubuntu.

I should note too that I personally use source branches on probably 95% of
packages I touch, which may not be representative of the whole archive, but
still.  The ones I have to hack on old skool are generally because of package
importer issues, which are becoming much more rare, again thanks to the great
work of the udd/bzr team.  It always feels much more uncomfortable to do
things the apt-get source way though.  YMMV.

Cheers,
-Barry

[1] I know ScottK knows all this already :)
[2] https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DistributedDevelopment