Archive tools/reports for universe

[Emmet Hikory]

On 7/3/07, Sarah Hobbs <hobbsee at kubuntu.org> wrote:
> With our discussion earlier today about archive tools for universe, I
> thought I might post to here, and get an indication of what people think
> would be useful.
<...>
>  * Running the cruft checker (this is already done, but is run manually
> at the moment)

    This also needs better annoucement.  Also, a fancy HTML interface
with comments, etc. might aid in coordination (although currently not
enough people chase cruft for there to be significant coordination
issues).

>  * sync candidates between DebianImportFreeze and UpstreamVersionFreeze
>    - Does this mean keeping MoM running?
>    - MoM only covers merges, not syncs
>    - Use multidistrotools?

    Multidistrotools is nice for that, but our current best list (1)
is hosted on Debian infrastructure: it would be nice to have that
somewhere Ubuntuised.  Also, some documentation on when something
should be synchronised would be nice.

    Additionally, there is Andrew's debian bug watch system (2), which
is currently undergoing a UI rewrite.  This might be a better source
of information for sync candidates, as we typically are more
interested in new Debian revisions that fix bugs, rather than just
random new revisions.  Also, it would benefit from being hosted
somewhere with more bandwidth to allow more regular updates.

>  * Better bug search interface
>    - Find more patches
>    - Probably done within bughelper

    This may also just be greater advertisement of procedures on
reporting patches during the bug filing process.  Many patches appear
to be from those who have only submitted a few bugs: catching these
early should both encourage additional contributions to Ubuntu and
improve the quality of the distribution.  Rather than the patch
process, it may even only be a procedural change for triagers - if
there is an effective means by which triagers can pass patches to
developers (MOTU or Contributors - doesn't matter), less may be
missed.

>  * Tracking removal candidates
>    - Presumably this would be mostly binaries that aren't built by their
> sources anymore.  See
> https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ArchiveAdministration#head-ef54afaa92dc55a2e7c4e39b7a7d1b996a099f8c
> for more information.

    There's also 1) packages dropped in Debian, but still in Ubuntu
(or Ubuntu-local packages that have been replaced with a different
solution in Debian), for which removals may be appropriate, even
though the source is still available.  Multidistrotools can output a
good base, but adding something that allowed for sharing of review
information (this one's good local, this drop waits on some other
thing, needed for LTS transition: dummy package only, etc.) would be
nice.

    Aside from those, it would be nice to have better tracking of
binary removals.  Our current NBS analyses do not notice when a
package stops being built for a specific architecture, and it requires
a developer to notice the problem (often through dependency checking,
etc.), and request a manual architecture-specific binary removal,
which may take a while (4).

1: http://people.debian.org/~lucas/ubuntu-versions/unimultiverse-outdated-ubuntu.html
2: http://ajmitch.net.nz/~ajmitch/missing-fixes.html
3: http://people.debian.org/~lucas/ubuntu-versions/unimultiverse-all.html#notinA
4: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/supercollider/+bug/32460
-- 
Emmet