science package work for Hardy

[Jordan Mantha]

Michael F. Rimbert wrote:
> I'd like to help.  I've been inactive for some time due to the demands
> of my job, and have let my MOTU membership on launchpad expire.  I'd
> like to discuss specific areas in which I could contribute.

Awesome! Nice to have you back. I guess we need to get a TODO going.
Here are just a couple thoughts going through my head for MOTU Science:

1) Make sure we get all the new upstream releases and debian bug-fix
revisions we can. We're currently at 116 outdated (in some way)
packages. We probably won't get all of them by feature freeze so we
should pick ones that will give us the most benefit.

2) Lowering our Debian-Ubuntu delta. Right now we have 93 packages with
Ubuntu changes, out of a total of 542 so that's 17% . Given how few
people actually work on these packages it'd be nice to get that down to
a manageable level. We're pretty much at the Universe average, 16%
Ubuntu changes, but I'd like to see the number down some. To do that we
need to evaluate all our delta and see what should be sent to Debian
and/or upstreams. It's perfectly fine to carry delta that we need to,
but we shouldn't have any more than that.

3) Have a good TODO system. dholbach has done a fair amount with this.
He's got a script in ubuntu-dev-tools called hugdaylist to produce pages
like https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuBugDay/20070912 . There's also a
massfile script and submittodebian script that might be useful. Some
teams like the Desktop Team have some good TODOs, we might look there
for some inspiration.

I'm also wondering about the usefulness of bzr for maintaining the
Ubuntu delta. It may be easier for us for packages that we are going to
have to deal with on a regular basis. Any thoughts?

Sorry Michael for turning this into a general email. I think it's
helpful for all of us to think about some specific things we can do. I'd
say mostly we need to hit the merges/syncs while we still have time
(FeatureFreeze is 14th of Feburary). Then we can focus on the bug fixing.

-Jordan