Giving developers access to requeue package imports [Was: Ubuntu Platform developers BOF session?]

[Barry Warsaw]

On Nov 13, 2013, at 04:28 PM, Stéphane Graber wrote:

>For UDD, if we can't commit to the branch, then there's zero benefit in
>even using it as the source branch as I could just as well use apt-get
>source, which will get me the current package from the archive (which
>UDD doesn't necessarily give me...), then apply changes and push that.

For simple package changes, you could have a point, but I rarely encounter
simple package changes specifically in Ubuntu.  Usually I'm merging a new
upstream, or Debian version, and then local version control is often a
godsend.  Sometimes the merge goes badly, or you have conflicts, or it's not
enough to get a working Ubuntu package.  I can do the merge, commit that local
change, and then do further commits locally as I refine the package to build
and work properly.  I can diff between revisions, revert changes, etc.
E.g. all the benefits of version control.  I can create side branches of my
main branch to try things out, then merge them back into my main branch.  All
this is especially useful if you are working on a package over some span of
time.

apt-get source is like performing without a net.  Let's say you head down the
wrong path while updating a package.  It's very difficult to backup and try
again, take side travels for experimentation, etc.  Oh, and chdist is nice,
but I prefer having ubuntu:<series>{,-proposed}/<package> branches.

>Not having commit rights to the UDD branch would make UDD a simple
>archiving service and based on its current state, a pretty bad one at
>that.
>
>To clarifiy my position, I really like UDD and I think that kind of VCS
>integration is what we want for the distro, but it's never been working
>reliably enough to gain sufficient momentum.
>
>In a perfect world, I'd have a VCS repository containing branches for
>all Ubuntu series and pockets, for the various Debian releases and for
>the upstream code, making any rebase/cherry-pick trivial and having LP
>trigger builds on either a special signed commit or a signed tag.
>
>Also in that perfect world, the inner workings of our upload process
>would be tied to that, so that it wouldn't be possible for the branch to
>be out of sync with the archive. This could be achieved by either making
>this the only way to upload or making the "legacy" upload path, commit
>to the branch and export from there prior to processing.

I'll agree with you there.  I'd love to live in this world. :)

-Barry
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