[Docker-maint] Future of Docker in Debian

[Tom Fernandes]

Dear maintainers,

Mid of 2014 the company I work for decided to run some applications
through containers based on Debians Docker package. Everything was fine
up to the 1.6.2~dfsg1-1~bpo8+1 Release in 2015 which entered
jessie-backports.

Since then a lot of time has passed and there are several reasons why we
slowly need to upgrade to a newer Docker version. As there is no newer
Docker version in Debian (except for unstable), we will soon have to
make the decision if we can wait longer - hoping for a new upload to
testing/backports - or move to the upstream Debian package, which is
(for several reasons) not what we really want or to some other type of
infrastructure.

The current status of Docker in Debian is, that the version in unstable
is already one year old compared to the latest upstream-stable version.
Since over a year no Docker package has entered testing and thus no
backport is available for (old)stable.

Taking a look at the "testing excuses"[1] or an active bug report[2] it
seems to me that for having a well maintained Debian package there is
more work to be done than there is manpower available.
There have been people offering help[2][3], but I couldn't see any
acceptance of help or explanation why the help was not needed/rejected.

Would you mind sharing your thoughts on:

- how likely it is that there will be a package in testing soon?
- if you think that the current manpower is capable of maintaining the
  package and it's dependencies in the near and medium-term future? Or
  - in case that there is too little manpower - if plans exist to change
  the current situation?

This would help us - an maybe other people using the old Debian-Docker
package - to make a well-founded decision how to proceed.

Last but not least I want to thank you for all the effort which has gone
into bringing and maintaining Docker in Debian!

Warm regards,


Tom

1) https://tracker.debian.org/docker.io
2) https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=850753
3)
https://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/docker-maint/Week-of-Mon-20171127/000775.html