Styles of Packaging (was: Deprecating the wiki-based Packaging Guide)

[Scott Kitterman]

On Tuesday, December 18, 2012 03:16:13 PM Emmet Hikory wrote:
>     There is definitely a set of tools that are currently the most popular
> in the Debian archive, and these integrate well with a set of tools being
> developed under the "Ubuntu Distributed Development" moniker, which
> combination may well likely be that which is recommended by the Ubuntu
> Packaging Guide under development: as such, this recommendation [0] is what
> ought be followed by the class of developers for whom packaging is a means
> to an end (as they are often focused on a specific piece of software).  For
> folk who might focus on packaging as an end, preferring the role of
> distribution developer to that of application developer, there is a need
> for a greater understanding of the underlying policy and the massive
> variety of tools by which this policy may be implemented.

I think UDD based packaging is a very poor recommendation for this class of 
packagers for several reasons:

1.  While there are sponsors that prefer branches over debdiffs/source packages 
uploaded somewhere, I don't know of any that will only sponsor branches.  The 
reverse is not true.  There are developers that don't do UDD sponsoring.  By 
pursuing this path, new packagers limit the potential candidates to sponsor 
packages.

2.  For developers that have a significant interest in a specific package, we 
generally recommend that they submit that package to Debian (although it might 
be accepted to Ubuntu first).  Debian doesn't use Ubuntu UDD (in fact the 
acronym UDD has a completely different meaning in a Debian context).  So if 
developers learn UDD style packaging they have to learn a new set of tools to 
work with Debian.

3.  Ubuntu UDD has sufficient reliability issues that it is not rare for 
branches to be out of date.  As soon as this happens, the new developer then 
has to get familiar with traditional tools (which are not documented in the 
packaging guide - last I looked for them anyway).

I know UDD is working for some Ubuntu developers, but I don't think it's 
mature enough to be the first set of tools we give new people to use.

Scott K