Things to graph for package-of-the-day work

[Jonathan Lange]

On Mon, Nov 16, 2009 at 9:20 AM, Jordan Mantha <laserjock at ubuntu.com> wrote:
> On Mon, Nov 16, 2009 at 1:19 AM, Martin Pool <mbp at canonical.com> wrote:
>> 2009/11/16 Jonathan Lange <jml at canonical.com>:
>>>>>> 1. Packages with upstream imports
>>>>>>  - Number of packages (maybe in an interesting subset)
>>>>>
>>>>> Packages in Lucid main: 16143
>>>>> Packages in Karmic main: 16217
>>>>>
>>>>>>  - Number of these packages with upstream links
>>>>>
>>>>> lucid: 16
>>>>> karmic: 340
>>>>
>>>> So 'upstream links' in this context means just a link from a distro
>>>> package to a Launchpad product, and from there it may have a link to a
>>>> trunk branch?
>>>>
>>>
>>> To a Launchpad product series. From there it has a link to a product,
>>> which then in turn has a link to a product series which has a link to
>>> a branch.
>>>
>>> I'm not sure if this answer actually helps.
>>
>> It does confirm my tentative understanding was correct.
>>
>> Then your numbers seem to show that the weakest link in the import
>> chain may be those upstream links?  And it should be fairly easily
>> fixed, considering the data to complete say 90% of them is probably
>> already in the system?
>
> From the perspective an Ubuntu developer, I've been around Launchpad
> since Ubuntu first started using it and I am still baffled as to how
> these upstream links work, how they are supposed to be used, and what
> benefit they might have to the developer. I therefore choose to ignore
> them entirely. Is there any documentation on what exactly the linking
> is for and what it means to an Ubuntu developer?
>

No docs that I know of. Curtis might, since he seems to know
everything about the registry.

Although I don't quite see the details yet, I can expect this being
more useful when we have better bug forwarding and more infrastructure
for package-of-the-day.

In fact, you'd probably know better than I: If Launchpad had access to
the branch for a source package and the branch for its latest
upstream, what could we do that would help the average Ubuntu
developer?

jml