Hi Andreas,
As per discussion on #osgeolive, we agreed to use the
DebianGIS->UbuntuGIS->OSGeoLive ppa approach here, hoping we can get
people to cooperate, instead of duplicating work.
It is also good to know that non-free Debian is available to upload
packages with Java jar and war files.
Let's try to push Java packages there and follow the above workflow.
On 01/02/2014 02:18 PM, Andreas Tille wrote:
Hi Angelos,
On Thu, Jan 02, 2014 at 01:26:57PM +0200, Angelos Tzotsos wrote:
1. Use all the standard tools in Debian packaging and create/update
packages on UbuntuGIS ppa.
I personally would welcome if the packaging itself would happen in Debian
GIS repository[1]
We have been using UbuntuGIS unstable as our base for some years
now, mostly due to OSGeoLive being Xubuntu based. I am sure that if
new packages get created, can be ported to DebianGIS.
I think this is a total misunderstanding what I wrote. Since
Ubuntu(GIS) is based on Debian (and Debian GIS **is** Debian and nothing
else - just a Debian Pure Blend which is by definition completely inside
Debian) porting something *back* to Debian is a duplicated effort which
I want to avoid. If you do the work straight in Debian you get the
Ubuntu package automatically without any additional work. So the idea
is to create the packaging straight into the pkg-grass Vcs on
alioth.debian.org. If for whatever reason the Debian package is not
released right in time for your purpose you can upload the packaging
status from there to whatever PPA.
Personally, I would have no objection if packaging happened at
DebianGIS and we ported to UbuntuGIS next.
The issue here is that this call for packaging does not involve only
the few maintainers of the OSGeoLive project but actually all the
projects included in the DVD (more than 60). Half of those do not
provide a deb for installation.
OK. So the task is to push packaging stuff into pkg-grass Vcs and if it
is not taken by some Debian GIS maintainer right in time it is possible
to push the package to a PPA. We are using this workflow in Debian Med
quite successfully with BioLinux (which from a organisational point of
view might be comparable to OSGeoLive since it is also an Ubuntu
derivative with some extensions). If they have created some packaging
stuff they push it to Debian Med repository and we are grabbing this
stuff if we have the time to do this, upload to Debian and than the
automatic cycle: Debian unstable -> Ubuntu -> BioLinux starts working
without additional work for any backports. I'd imagine to implement
this workflow also into the GIS world.
I would like to repeat my offer of sponsering GIS related packages I
have offered in my "Sponsering of Blends"[2] effort which surely also
involves giving hints to relevant packaging documentation in case of
trouble.
Thank you for that
I admit I'm quite reluctant about tools like this. Without having ever
tried I have serious doubt that you can create lintian clean packages
once packaging might become non-trivial. Creating trivial packages is
easy with plain Debian tools and thus we end up with complex packaging
which will most probably fail with fpm anyway.
We are trying to find a very simple way to create deb packages,
since most developers do not have packaging experience.
According to my experience those simple ways will create more work
afterwards as if done right in the first place. "Everything should be
made as simple as possible, but not simpler. - A. Einstein"
Well, according to our experience in the OSGeoLive project, we would not
have 60+ projects included if we did not accept very simple ways of
installing (in the form of shell scripts).
I agree that packaging is the *right* way of installing software on
GNU/Linux and I am happy to see that in our tonight's meeting we had
many packagers present, offering to help. This is very good news...
So learning some basic packaging rules is not very hard - we have a good
tradition of mentoring in Debian Med and IMHO the fault in Debian GIS
team is that people spent to less time into this important task.
Frequently repeating to say that you do not have time and not spending
time to teach others how to help you is a bad strategy. I'm specifically
trying to help on this front (since I can not help with any GIS knowledge
which is basically zero for me).
Until now we
have installation shell scripts for all the projects which is simple
and easy to follow. Unfortunately deb packaging is not that
simple...
I'd call this a wrong statement. Have you any evidence for this? I
think even writing down sentences like this is wrong since it might keep
people away from even trying.
We agree to disagree here. 50% of projects included in OSGeoLive was not
able to provide deb files in the past, while all have provided shell
installers. It is just not as simple with packaging rules, lintian etc.
I also don't believe that stating that will drive people away, if they
really want to learn they will stick to trying. People will be more
disappointed if you claim packaging is very simple and it takes them
days to figure out how it works...
When we started this discussion on the OSGeoLive meetings, many thought
that packaging is going to complicate things and I was asked to provide
a solution as simple as shell installers, thus FPM was proposed as an
easy and practical solution.
Did you checked the changes file with lintian? May be my suspiscion is
wrong and I need to change my mind about this.
No I did not. Here, I believe convenience is important at least for
the first steps of this effort.
However, convenience is not the Debian philosophy and me beeing occupied
by this philosophy can not agree to this.
[1] https://wiki.debian.org/DebianGis
[2] https://wiki.debian.org/DebianPureBlends/SoB
This proposal could just become obsolete if we manage to find
volunteers to do all the Debian packaging for 30+ projects the
proper way. That would be awesome.
I'd volunteer to teach those people who fired up fpm to create a package
to continue from this to a real package. Just redirect them to me and
I'll do the packaging in some kind of "Mentoring of Month"[1] like
effort.
Thank you for your offer. This mentoring will be very helpful in this
packaging effort.
Kind regards
Andreas.
[1] https://wiki.debian.org/DebianMed/MoM
Regards,
Angelos
--
Angelos Tzotsos
Remote Sensing Laboratory
National Technical University of Athens
http://users.ntua.gr/tzotsos
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