Re: [StGit] Debian packaging update

[Yann Dirson <ydirson@altern.org>]

On Thu, Aug 28, 2008 at 11:09:29AM -0300, Henrique de Moraes Holschuh wrote:
> (Debian maintainer(s) for stgit added to CC through the generic package
> redirect address).
> 
> On Fri, 22 Aug 2008, Catalin Marinas wrote:
> > 2008/8/22 Daniel White <daniel@whitehouse.id.au>:
> > > Since it is now packaged by Debian is it still necessary to be
> > > maintaining Debian packaging?
> > 
> > This is mainly to make it easier for Debian maintainers. Someone might
> > also want to build a .deb package for a different version or flavour
> > of Debian.
> 
> Well, I happen to be a heavy STGIT user, and also a senior Debian
> developer (I have been a DD for over 10 years), so I am entitled to
> reply to this thread I suppose :-)
> 
> Whatever people told you guys, the sad truth is that for the
> overwhelming majority of packages, the mere presence of a debian/ dir
> upstream is taken as a warning sign by any seasoned Debian developer
> (i.e. it is so often a problem, we take it as a bad sign).  It almost
> never helps.  I have no idea where stgit is in that regard, though.  And
> I have NOT checked the "upstream version of the Debian packaging", so
> please don't take this personally.

In this case, they are mostly in sync, except that lately I have not
been very active on the stgit front (and on the debian front as well
BTW), so that I did not take the time to formalize a set of patches
for integration of the latest changes into stgit.

And most of the problem then boils down to the current package diffs
not being handled as a series of patches, which is quite a shame for
stgit :).  Indeed I had started trying to change that at the very
beginning of my involvment in the package, but finally decided I had
no time for that - and I'm also quite frustrated by the various ways I
have tried to maintain debian packages as patch series, unfortunately
(eg. see my experiment in debian/README.maint in the tau package).  I
still have to come with a decent way of doing that.


> Of course, this changes a lot when upstream is also a Debian developer
> and spends a few hours per week keeping up-to-date with Debian policy
> and toolset changes, etc.

Hey, that's not far of what used to happen :)

Another benefit to having uptodate packaging upstream would be to have
deb snapshots regularly generated, alhough we don't take advantage of
this for the moment.


> I think you guys should CC the Debian developer on any threads about the
> debian/ dir.

I'm on the ml too, but CC'ing never hurts, especially since other
people can subscribe to the address via the Package Tracking System.