On Sat, Jul 14, 2007 at 10:17:56AM +0200, Reinhard Tartler wrote: > Scott Kitterman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > I agree that nobody owns anything, but many/most/all of us have certain > > packages that we focus on. > > > > From a technical perspective I think you are right for most packages. For > > me it's more about the exceptions and about respecting other's > > contributions/ being polite. > > > > There's no way to really know what those exceptions are. If familiarity > > with the package is essential to knowing how to merge it, someone who is > > unfamiliar is unlikely to understand the risks. > > I think Emmet has given a proposal for this in Message-ID: > <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > > > If a package has special maintenance concerns, these should be > > documented in the packaging (e.g.: please use the VCS to update this > > package => XS-Vcs-* in debian/control, please be sure to adjust the > > seeds rather than manually changing dependencies => Depends: > > germinate, please check with $team regarding this packages, as there > > are deep interactions with $system => comment in > > README.Debian-source).
I like this idea a lot. If we can make checking this file mandatory, then anyone who has done special Ubuntu changes can add a note there and the next person who touches it can see it easily. One can also say "Don't touch this package before contacting me first" there if he/she really cares about the pacakge a lot. I don't really like the name debian/README.Debian-source though. It's a filename used by Debian policy, and not very intuitive for an Ubuntu user. Jordan suggested README.Ubuntu in another subthread, I think it's much better, and if Ubuntu won't start using this name as Debian uses README.Debian (i.e., installing them in /usr/share/doc/<package>/ as user documentation) in the future, it a good choice. If we want to play safer, I suggest debian/README.Ubuntu-source. > I think this is the way to go. If someone had done a larger amount of > work, he should record that work in a VCS (in ubuntu, we prefer > Bzr). apt nowadays gives a hint if a source package contains a XS-Vcs > package. This hint will be visible to literarily everyone. > > If someone is doing a suboptimal merge (or syncs all changes away), then > we still have the vcs, where we can manually merge the package. I agree packaging work should be done in a VCS. I do it myself with my Debian packages (with SVN/SVK). The warning in "apt-get source" is also very nifty. I want to point out that introducing VCS usage (quite possibly multiple ones at that) for merging work will be an extra barrier for new contributor. Ming 2007.07.14 -- Ubuntu-motu mailing list [email protected] Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-motu
