On Sat, Apr 22, 2000 at 08:03:08AM -0600, Dwayne C . Litzenberger wrote: > I'm not even a maintainer yet, but I was thinking of signing up, and > helping get stuff moving from Incoming. > > How does stuff get from Incoming to the main tree, anyway?
There are three methods. If the package is completely new, the FTP admin has to check it out, verify that it passes the important Policy requirement tests (first of all, the license!), and add it to the "override" file[1] meaning that the automated daily ran program called "dinstall" will process it and move it to the archive. If the package isn't new, but is aimed at the unstable distribution only, it will get processed by dinstall automatically (on the daily run, of course). If the package (also) is aimed at the frozen or the stable distribution, it will have to be processed or acknowledged by the release manager. There are a few exceptions such as .changes files that have "byhand" entries, e.g. dpkg's .changes, that require manual intervention by the FTP admin each time, and the boot floppies, that sometimes don't even come with the .changes file but with instructions for the FTP admin how to use them, or even scripts. That's about it, I think. [1] It is called "override" because it can be used to override package's section, priority or maintainer, but that's usually not used; the values shipped with package are. -- Digital Electronic Being Intended for Assassination and Nullification
