[PKG-Openstack-devel] Django PySCSS package

[Antoine Catton]

Hey Thomas,

On 08/11/14 15:43, Thomas Goirand wrote:
> The reason is that Debian Jessie is now frozen, and we can't upgrade to
> a new version.

I understand, but this is a "patch" version, meaning only bug fixes have 
been applied. No new feature were introduced, backward compatibility try 
to be guaranteed. (I said "tried" because a bug fixes are usually 
backward incompatible. Someone might have been using this bug as a feature.)

> […]
> The thing is, it's difficult to convince the release team that we need
> an upgrade. They will want to review the difference, and we have to be
> very convincing so that they break the rules.

The main reason is that it fixes what were considered "bugs".

We maintain a ChangeLog on the stable/1.0.x branch. [1]

Between 1.0.3 (the current version on Debian) and 1.0.6 (the version I 
want you to switch to) the following patches have been applied:

  * 1.0.4: Pin PyScss to 1.2.0 (This was fixing a import error)
  * 1.0.5: Fix bad pinning (The setup.py pinning to 1.2.0 had a typo)
  * 1.0.6: Fix Django 1.7 compatibility (which is the patch 
"add-django-1.7-compat" [2] you're currently applying)

Moreover I don't know why you're applying "fix-storage.prefix-not-found" 
[2] since this was fixed in 1.0.3. [1]

[1] 
<https://github.com/fusionbox/django-pyscss/blob/stable/1.0.x/CHANGELOG.rst>
[2] 
<http://anonscm.debian.org/cgit/openstack/python-django-pyscss.git/tree/debian/patches>

>> Github issues are our favorite way of communicating. But we're okay with
>> receiving patch by email at programmers at fusionbox.com.
>
> Best way for us is to use the packaging list:
> PKG OpenStack <openstack-devel at lists.alioth.debian.org>
>
> Or simply the Debian bug tracker.

No problem. I'll subscribe to the patch tracker for python-django-pyscss.

>
> As for the fixes of the patches, I would need you to explain what needs
> to change, and I may put that in a new Debian specific patch. For
> example, do you think that I need to add another patch? If there's
> nothing critical, then I will just leave the package as-is.

I mean, first of all, is I said above, "fix-storage.prefix-not-found" is 
already applied on 1.0.3. So I'm not sure how you can apply it again 
without having the "patch" command line tool complaining.

Second of all, as I said in my first email, I'm not fully aware of 
debian packaging policy.
As far as I know, Fedora's/Red hat's policy is "use the upstream package 
as is and upstream patch if needed", here you're using an old version of 
the upstream package and apply fixes which are already applied upstream. 
This is tedious, you're almost maintaining a fork.

Let me know what you think.

Regards,

-- 
Antoine Catton
Software Engineer at Fusionbox, Inc.
<http://www.fusionbox.com>