request for stable release exception: ubuntu-dev-tools

[Steve Langasek]

Hello,

Most immediately prompted by the discovery that an attempt to SRU
debootstrap runs afoul of a difference in behavior in mk-sbuild between
karmic and earlier releases[1], I have gotten around to drafting a proposed
SRU exception for the ubuntu-dev-tools package:

  https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuDevToolsUpdates

While it's proper that ubuntu-dev-tools be provided as a deb in the
distribution, the normal SRU process is a poor fit for this package.  We
should provide consistent tooling to Ubuntu developers regardless of which
release they're running on top of.

The fact that we haven't had such an SRU exception in place means that
ubuntu-dev-tools has been allowed to atrophy, because we couldn't rely on
all Ubuntu developers having timely access through that package to new
tooling without doing a bunch of extra work - so tools have wound up
distributed by other suboptimal methods (e.g. the
retry-autopkgtest-regressions tool, which is in lp:ubuntu-archive-tools
despite in no way being specific to Archive Admin privileges).

I raised the question on ubuntu-devel last year of where to distribute such
tools, without a satisfactory conclusion to the discussion[2].  This is my
proposed answer.

Why not a snap?
---------------
Snaps address the question of release-agnostic distribution of software. 
But since the ubuntu-dev-tools package defines *the* Ubuntu developer
experience, it's important that all core-devs be able to make changes to it. 
The lack of Launchpad group integration in the Snap Store would impose an
unacceptable publishing bottleneck.

By its nature, ubuntu-dev-tools would also either need to be a classic snap,
or be granted an interface with broad filesystem privileges, neither of
which makes it a particularly good fit for the snap model.

Thanks,
-- 
Steve Langasek                   Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS
Debian Developer                   to set it on, and I can move the world.
Ubuntu Developer                                   https://www.debian.org/
slangasek at ubuntu.com                                     vorlon at debian.org

[1] https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ubuntu-dev-tools/+bug/2020530
[2] https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel/2022-April/041996.html
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