On patch submissions

[Luke Faraone]

Hi all,

I noticed recently a number of patch submissions for bugs in Launchpad.
This is good, of course. However, in addition to potentially fixing a
problem, each patch potentially adds to our maintenance burden if it is
not merged upstream at Sugar Labs or in Debian. Most of the patches I've
seen in the queue have not been pushed further upstream, but should be.

As I mentioned in an [earlier post][1], bugs (and patches!) that are not
Ubuntu or Debian specific should _always_ be reported upstream to [Sugar
Labs' Trac][2]. These should be normal unified diffs, either created
with `git-format-patch` or just trimmed debdiffs. (removing
debian-specific packaging elements).

You can find an example of an upstreamed patch in Sugar Labs bugs
[2285][] and [2289][]. (LP: #617805 and #617813 respectively)

Also please take care to report the bug to Debian. The `submittodebian`
tool can assist in authoring the bug report, and can automatically
include your patch. While this is not terribly important for cosmetic
and low priority fixes, which will move downstream when the new upstream
version of Sugar is released, medium and higher bugs should always be
submitted.

(of course, if you maintain the package in Debian, you can apply the fix
directly to the package git, and ask for an upload if necessary)

As a result, we'll end up with easier-to-maintain packages and our work
will benefit the widest audience possible

[1]:
http://news.gmane.org/find-root.php?message_id=%3c4C6964C8.2030302%40faraone.cc%3e
[2]: http://bugs.sugarlabs.org/
[2285]: http://bugs.sugarlabs.org/ticket/2285
[2289]: http://bugs.sugarlabs.org/ticket/2289

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│Luke Faraone                          ╭Debian / Ubuntu Developer╮│
│http://luke.faraone.cc                ╰Sugar Labs, Systems Admin╯│
│PGP: 5189 2A7D 16D0 49BB 046B  DC77 9732 5DD8 F9FD D506          │
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