Volunteers needed to experiment with tags in debian/control

[Enrico Zini]

Hello,

I would like to experiment with a little new plan for having tags flow
again from the web submissions[1] to the Packages file.

Currently the flow happens by hand, with yours truly checking every
single submissions and approving it or rejecting it.  This doesn't work,
it's long, boring, error prone, and I haven't been doing it for a long
while now.

I came out with a plan to allow developers to voluntarily take care of
reviewing the tags for some or all of their packages.

The plan goes as this:

 0) Download http://people.debian.org/~enrico/2006-09/debtags-updatecontrol
 1) Edit debian/control adding an empty "Tag:" field for every *binary*
    package
 2) In your package root directory, run debtags-updatecontrol.
    The script will check debtags.alioth.debian.org for new tags, and it
    will guide you through reviewing all the differences.
 3) Have a look at debian/control: you will find that the Tag: field has
    been updated with the new tags
 4) Upload the package: I will notice that it has the Tag: field and
    I'll know that I don't have to do manual review of tags for it.

The script is smart enough to ask you to review only the differences
between the data on Alioth and the data in your package.  If you reject
changes from Alioth, it will also offer you to mail the patch back to
it.

Now, the part about the volunteers: this has not been tested yet.  Also,
there is currently a big Tag override file that will override your
changes.  What I need is to have some packages with a Tag: field in the
control file, so that I can implement and test the final part of the
plan, which consists in updating the override file to let your tags
through.

What I am doing is trying to setup a system in which the override file
isn't used to override, but just to fill in the Tag field for those
maintainers who are not comfortable filling it in themselves.

Finally, the tricky bit.  I'm leaving tomorrow for an extended,
networkless week-end in the mountains.  I'm sending this mail out now
hoping that when I come back there'll be some package in the archive
with the Tag: field, enabling me to go on developing the missing bit.

If you don't feel comfortable doing it, or debtags-updatecontrol doesn't
work for you, just send me an e-mail and leave it there: I'll see to it
when I come back.

If you manage to upload a package with a Tag: field, please also drop me
an e-mail so I'll know that it's there.

Sorry for asking things and then running away.  But then, I couldn't
bear waiting for Tag: fields to flow in while biting my nails in front
of the computer, and it's good that I cope with the stress by instead
enduring the wait high up in the Alps :)


Ciao,

Enrico

[1] http://debtags.alioth.debian.org/cgi-bin/edit.cgi?pkg=PKGNAME
-- 
GPG key: 1024D/797EBFAB 2000-12-05 Enrico Zini <enrico at debian.org>
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