[pkg-kolab] cyrus-imapd 2.3.16

[Mathieu Parent]

(I'm answering fast as you may have chosen the wrong path, see below)

On Wed, Sep 1, 2010 at 1:19 PM, Jeroen van Meeuwen (Kolab Systems)
<vanmeeuwen at kolabsys.com> wrote:
> Hello dear pkg-kolab,

Hello, welcome to pkg-kolab ML!

> In light of this upstream release, and the packaging efforts over at kolab.org
> as well as Kolab Systems, I would want to share some of the work I'm doing as
> to avoid duplication, and to hopefully gain some insight on how you work on
> packaging Kolab for Debian as a whole, and learn to work with you -I'm not a
> blessed Debian packager ;-)
>
> First of all, let me thank you for the efforts you've put in making pkg-kolab
> native packages available to Debian (and inherently Ubuntu).
>
> Secondly, and please do correct me if I'm wrong, it is my understanding that
> nobody has yet worked / published Debian packages for cyrus-imapd-2.3.x -is
> that correct?
Correct.


> Thirdly, with regards to cyrus-imapd-2.3.x, what is your opinion on pushing
> such to -maybe- Debian unstable/experimental, provided someone is willing to
> do the packaging work?

Currently we have kolab-cyrus-imapd (see note [kolab-cyrus-imapd])
which is based on [cyrus-imapd-2.2] plus some patches (this is done
with a [script]).

cyrus-imapd-2.3 is packaged out of debian by the Debian Cyrus Team
(<pkg-cyrus-imapd-debian-devel at lists.alioth.debian.org>), but
unfortunately it was not ready for squeeze freeze ([cyrus-imapd-2.3]).

Ask there if they want to take the remaining kolab patches. If not, we
will still need to carry them in some kolab-cyrus-imapd-2.3 package.


> Fourthly, since Kolab Systems had a business interest in native packages for
> Debian as well as Ubuntu, we are going to have to work on the packaging and
> quality assurance; but we have different requirements to product support and
> functionality then most distributions have or allow;

What are the differences? In Debian, appart from being DFSG (aka free
software) and avoiding library duplication, we are open to any
suggestion.

> That said, speaking for Fedora / Red Hat / CentOS / EPEL, in which realm I am
> a very much experienced packager, one of the obvious truths is that kolab-
> cyrus-imapd simply won't be allowed in the sense that it is essentially a fork
> for cyrus-imapd and the philosophy is to submit the work upstream before
> including it in the distribution or repository.

This is the long-term goal of course. A mid-term goal would be to
include those patches in the standard cyrus-imapd-2.3 package (which
is not yet in Debian). A short term would be to finish cyrus-imapd-2.3
and build kolab-cyrus-imapd-2.3 from it.

I have seen your threads on kolab-devel to merge kolab patches
upstream. Keep going!

> That being as it may, I would appreciate your feedback on anything that I do
> for Kolab Systems that is somehow mutually exclusive with the APT packaging
> guidelines -in which you are and probably will be for a long time to come,
> much more experienced then I am. I would want to work on making what is part
> of my job and your awesome work as easy as possible for you all.
>
> Point in case is also, that since pkg-kolab is a Subversion repository, I'm
> unable to push out my work somewhere you can find/consume it, such being a
> different repository over at Kolab Systems infrastructure. I regret that, but
> I hope you will appreciate that I'm doing what I can ;-)

This is not a problem: Use git-svn and publish your work as you do on
git.kolabsys.com. I will take a look at it and push as much as
possible

> If you are interested, please let me know. Here's a couple of resources in
> relation to our APT packaging efforts;
>
> http://git.kolabsys.com/apt/kolab-cyrus-imapd/

I think you would better start from current SVN cyrus-imapd-2.3 as a
lot has been made there to follow current good practices. Also
pkg-cyrus-imapd-debian-devel team need help.


> http://mirror.kolabsys.com/pub/debian/
>
> Again, and I cannot emphasize this enough, your feedback is much appreciated!
>
> Kind regards,
>
> --
> Jeroen van Meeuwen

Mathieu Parent

[kolab-cyrus-imapd]: http://packages.qa.debian.org/k/kolab-cyrus-imapd.html
[cyrus-imapd-2.2]: http://packages.qa.debian.org/c/cyrus-imapd-2.2.html
[script]: http://svn.debian.org/wsvn/pkg-kolab/kolab-cyrus-imapd/scripts/cyrus-to-kolab
[cyrus-imapd-2.3]: See
http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/pkg-cyrus-imapd-debian-devel/2010-August/003427.html
and other archives from this ML