[Pkg-ace-devel] 6.0.1

[Pau Garcia i Quiles]

On Sun, Feb 20, 2011 at 8:52 PM, Thomas Girard <thomas.g.girard at free.fr> wrote:
> Le 20/02/2011 19:27, Johnny Willemsen a écrit :
>>> Then would you find it acceptable to remove debian/ from distributed
>>> tarballs?
>>
>> For the short term, but on the long term I would like to see all
>> packaging support in the main distribution itself, also maintained and
>> tested from there.
>
> We've discussed that already; I don't think packaging effort will ever
> happen in upstream's repo.
>
> Rationale:
>  A DOC group wants Debian packages:
>   1. working out of the box for regular users. That is, users that
>   will use Debian stable
>   2. that can be compiled and tested with ACE+TAO trunk
>  B Debian packagers want to have a given ACE+TAO release in Debian.
>   Even if it's slightly outdated. The regular process to achieve this
>   is:
>   1. upload ACE+TAO packages to unstable distribution
>   2. this will transition to testing distribution if packages are fine
>   3. and they will be embedded in the next stable release when the
>      stable distribution cycle completes.
>
> The problem is that A. 1. *stable* is not compatible with B. 1.
> *unstable*, and that A. 2. *trunk* is not compatible with a *given*
> *release* in B. Debian evolves while ACE+TAO does. Not setting one out
> of the two does not seem like a reachable goal.
>
> Having DOC repo debian/ directory an svn:external to pkg-ace repo will
> not work all the time because it could be out of synch with ACE+TAO
> releases (as we are for now).

I think we can find a solution here and it will benefit both Debian and DOC.

Johnny and the DOC Group want ACE to build on Debian Stable.

We (pkg-ace-devel) want ACE to build on Debian Unstable, and in a few
months time, that will imply differences in packaging to add/remove
dependencies, update minimum requirements, etc

Maybe we can do both. I propose the following policy:

 - Debian packaging will be maintained in pkg-ace (svn.debian.org for
now; will be git.debian.org soon)

- Debian developers (i. e. we) will package new versions for Debian Unstable

- Debian Developers will maintain a "squeeze" branch in git.debian.org
that will contain a backport of ACE to Debian Stable

- DOC Group will take our 'squeeze' branch as an svn external (or git
submodule; IIRC ACE is now in gitorious)

- To make it clear: DOC Group will NOT modify what pkg-ace-devels
have. The 'debian' directory in ACE will be an unmodified copy of what
we have in git.debian.org

Now, this poses a serious problem: in order to package ACE 6.0.2 for
Debian Unstable and backport that packaging to Debian Stable, we need
to have ACE 6.0.2 *before* it is released. Given that my time machine
is out of order at the moment, either we are notified of the release
date with sufficient time (at least one week) to package, or we cannot
work with that workflow.

Alternatively, we (pkg-ace-devel) could provide backports using
backports.debian.org

What do you guys think?

-- 
Pau Garcia i Quiles
http://www.elpauer.org
(Due to my workload, I may need 10 days to answer)