getting fixed version of mit-scheme into universe

[Stefan Potyra]

Hi Chris,

(CC to Adam for further comments).

Am Freitag 06 Oktober 2006 06:14 schrieb Chris Hanson:
> Hi,
>
> I'm the maintainer of the Debian mit-scheme packages, as well as the
> upstream author.  I've noticed that these packages haven't been updated
> in universe for a long time, apparently because they can't be built from
> source.  There's a reason for this, which is that a sufficiently new
> version of MIT/GNU Scheme must be installed in order to build from
> source.  (The majority of the source is written in Scheme and must be
> compiled by the Scheme compiler to build a binary, so there's a
> bootstrap issue to contend with.)  Periodically, the changes between
> releases mean that there is no released package "sufficiently new" to
> compile the sources.
>
> This isn't a problem for upstream, because we always release both
> sources and binaries.  And it's not a problem for Debian, because I
> always use a non-packaged upstream binary to build the binary packages
> that I upload.  But it does appear to be a problem for Ubuntu, because
> automated building doesn't work in these cases, and no one is uploading
> manually-built binaries.
>
> So, what can be done to resolve this issue?  I'd like there to be
> up-to-date binaries in Ubuntu.  I build such binary packages as part of
> the upstream release, and distribute them from the MIT/GNU Scheme home
> page.  Is there some way that I can get hand-built binaries uploaded to
> the archive?

Unfortunately that's the exact problem: Unlike debian, we cannot upload binary 
packages to ubuntu. Because of this, bootstrapping has to be done by a 
buildd-admin. This also means, that there usually will be some delay between 
a new sourcepackage is synced from debian and the bootstrapping will have 
been done in ubuntu. Adam, what do you suggest?

>
> Launchpad considers me to be the "maintainer" for these packages (as
> well as all the others I maintain for Debian), but it's not obvious to
> me what that means, and whether there are any associated privileges
> and/or responsibilities.  I'm pretty sure it doesn't allow me to upload
> packages to the archives, though.

No, it doesn't. It rather tells that you maintain that package in debian. As a 
side note, there have been some changes to the maintainer field for newly 
built debian packages, but I'm not really sure about the details. 

However if you are interested in "maintaining" your packages in ubuntu (we 
don't have that strong package<->maintainer relationship; anyone can change 
any package, though many ppl. also have their pet packages), you would of 
course be warmly welcomed :). Also the entry-barrier for DD's to become 
ubuntu-developers is much lower for obvious reasons.

>
> I understand that Edgy is currently in freeze, and I'm not suggesting
> that this be done now.  I'm hoping to figure this out so that the
> archives can be updated after the release.
>
> Thanks for any help you can offer.  And please include me in any reply
> as I don't read this list.

Thanks for telling us about the problem and big thanks for your debian and 
upstream work.

Cheers,
    Stefan.
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