Daniel,
before answering to your questions let me explain better the context of my
comments regarding the packaging and updates policy.
From my experience, home PCs and enterprise PCs don't share the same
requirements.
The current policy/processes are mandatory for enterprise/business IT
managed environments where sw and hw upgrades are (slow) business driven and
the key factors are security, stability, certification and support.
At home, upgrades are user's driven and the key factors are features, people
want to be able to use their latest gadget and to export files to the newest
online service they have subscribed, etc, etc., for those this strict policy
may be an adoption blocker.
I believe Ubuntu/Debian packaging aims business IT, while I am aiming home
users.
Answering your questions:
The sources are not available online yet, I have this pending with the
script which is not yet implemented that will take care of populating the
getdeb database and upload all the files, please note that I am not using a
repository and the associated tools.
I am providing the sources every time I get a request, which is rare, most
of getdeb visitors are end users which have no use for the source.
I understand the benefits on working a greater team like the MOTU but to be
honest I don't believe I would be able to participate to the Ubuntu users as
much I believe I am doing with GetDeb. Browsing on REVU I don't see that
much activity and I see packages introduced from September which are
pending, to be honest, such "Welcome to REVU" is not encouraging for someone
willing to provide the newest applications to the users.
Please don't get me wrong but in my opinion the best hands to fix bugs are
the software developers not the software packagers, if it's a trivial bug, I
will fix it and contact the author, if is not trivial it should be up to the
upstream developers to fix it, turning the packagers into co-developers is
not very efficient, specially for bug fixing. Ideally it would be the way
around, developers providing and updating their own packages.
I have not decided yet about the bug reporting system, it will point to a
launchpad entry or I will use the upstream bug reporting system.
Despite our different approaches and concerns I am sure we will be able to
cooperate.
Best regards,
2007/3/8, Daniel Holbach <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
Hello João,
On Do, 2007-03-08 at 13:33 +0000, João Pinto wrote:
> I have been a software developer for a long time and just recently got
> interested into software packaging, mostly because during my Ubuntu
> forum's participation I realized there is a lot of non-developers
> spending too much time to get a specific application or feature which
> is not yet available on the repositories.
> I am not an experienced packager but I did understood the strict
> policy/requirements to be a Debian/Ubuntu maintainer by looking into
> REVU and Debian mentors, I would never be able to keep
> updating/creating packages with such quality requirements and be able
> to have "0 days" packages together with the site building and
> packaging requests scouting.
I can see your point. It often takes a while to get packages
* conform to the packaging policy
* reviewed
* included.
Each of these steps takes a certain amount of time, but that for a
reason.
1. Packages which conform to the packaging policy are less likely
to cause problems on the user's machines.
2. Reviewed packages are less buggy, contain all the necessary
information and reviewer and package maintainer both learn
during the process.
3. Packages that went through the archive admins' hands are
redistributable and won't cause problems for the user or the
distributor of those packages.
It's clear that our current process it not optimal. Therefore we're
working on a new process that will make step 2 easier and shorter
because of collaboration on the packaging. [1]
Documentation could be easier and better, to make step 1 quicker. It'd
be nice if you could check [2] and give feedback on it.
[1] https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MOTU/Processes/REVU
[2] https://help.ubuntu.com/6.10/ubuntu/packagingguide/C/index.html
> Today I have added RSS Feed to GetDeb
> (http://www.getdeb.net/rss.php?distro_id=3 , the id is based on the
> distro selection) I think it could be a good start to monitor package
> releases, however I am still missing a core requirements:
> 1. The debian diffs are not (yet) available
> 2. Internal revision/notification in case an already published
> package needs to be updated (I am justing uploading the new .deb now)
Do you publish the source somewhere?
> Right now I am working on accounts support I am planning to provide
> future services like new releases emails, users rating, comments, etc.
> once user login/register is finished I will work on the above points,
> I will let you know when it's ready, hopefully next week.
>
> I was already very motivated because I get frequent feedback from
> getdeb users, most of the packages and features are based on them. I
> am happy to know that I will be able to cooperate even more with the
> Ubuntu community.
The packages you provide seem to fall into three categories:
1. NEW packages. It'd be interesting for us to know about those and
get the source somewhere. That way we could work with you on
including them in Ubuntu.
2. Backported packages. You seem to know quite well what would be
interesting for backports and what not. What do you think about
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/BackportRequestProcess ?
3. Changed packages. If you apply changes or fix packages in
certain ways, it'd be great to get the source for the change
somewhere.
I encourage you to get as much of these changes done in Ubuntu. The
reasons for that are pretty simple:
* If you encounter problems or bugs here are a lot of hands who
can help you with that.
* Where do your users report bugs? Right: most likely in
Launchpad. Who will fix those bugs? -- Sorry if this sounds
provocative. It's merely meant to start the discussion about the
practise of working together.
* Reach even more users with your fixes and changes - get those
fixes installed by default.
Let us know what you think about it.
Have a nice day,
Daniel
--
João Pinto
GetDeb Packager
http://www.getdeb.net
--
Ubuntu-motu mailing list
[email protected]
Modify settings or unsubscribe at:
https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-motu
