[Ubuntu] Fwd: [Live-demo] Packaging and project re-organization

[Andreas Tille]

Hi Angelos,

On Thu, Jan 02, 2014 at 01:26:57PM +0200, Angelos Tzotsos wrote:
> >>
> >>1. Use all the standard tools in Debian packaging and create/update
> >>packages on UbuntuGIS ppa.
> >I personally would welcome if the packaging itself would happen in Debian
> >GIS repository[1]
> We have been using UbuntuGIS unstable as our base for some years
> now, mostly due to OSGeoLive being Xubuntu based. I am sure that if
> new packages get created, can be ported to DebianGIS.

I think this is a total misunderstanding what I wrote.  Since
Ubuntu(GIS) is based on Debian (and Debian GIS **is** Debian and nothing
else - just a Debian Pure Blend which is by definition completely inside
Debian) porting something *back* to Debian is a duplicated effort which
I want to avoid.  If you do the work straight in Debian you get the
Ubuntu package automatically without any additional work.  So the idea
is to create the packaging straight into the pkg-grass Vcs on
alioth.debian.org.  If for whatever reason the Debian package is not
released right in time for your purpose you can upload the packaging
status from there to whatever PPA.

> Personally, I would have no objection if packaging happened at
> DebianGIS and we ported to UbuntuGIS next.
> The issue here is that this call for packaging does not involve only
> the few maintainers of the OSGeoLive project but actually all the
> projects included in the DVD (more than 60). Half of those do not
> provide a deb for installation.

OK.  So the task is to push packaging stuff into pkg-grass Vcs and if it
is not taken by some Debian GIS maintainer right in time it is possible
to push the package to a PPA.  We are using this workflow in Debian Med
quite successfully with BioLinux (which from a organisational point of
view might be comparable to OSGeoLive since it is also an Ubuntu
derivative with some extensions).  If they have created some packaging
stuff they push it to Debian Med repository and we are grabbing this
stuff if we have the time to do this, upload to Debian and than the
automatic cycle:  Debian unstable -> Ubuntu -> BioLinux starts working
without additional work for any backports.  I'd imagine to implement
this workflow also into the GIS world.

> >I would like to repeat my offer of sponsering GIS related packages I
> >have offered in my "Sponsering of Blends"[2] effort which surely also
> >involves giving hints to relevant packaging documentation in case of
> >trouble.
> Thank you for that

> >I admit I'm quite reluctant about tools like this.  Without having ever
> >tried I have serious doubt that you can create lintian clean packages
> >once packaging might become non-trivial.  Creating trivial packages is
> >easy with plain Debian tools and thus we end up with complex packaging
> >which will most probably fail with fpm anyway.
> 
> We are trying to find a very simple way to create deb packages,
> since most developers do not have packaging experience.

According to my experience those simple ways will create more work
afterwards as if done right in the first place.  "Everything should be
made as simple as possible, but not simpler. - A. Einstein"

So learning some basic packaging rules is not very hard - we have a good
tradition of mentoring in Debian Med and IMHO the fault in Debian GIS
team is that people spent to less time into this important task.
Frequently repeating to say that you do not have time and not spending
time to teach others how to help you is a bad strategy.  I'm specifically
trying to help on this front (since I can not help with any GIS knowledge
which is basically zero for me).

> Until now we
> have installation shell scripts for all the projects which is simple
> and easy to follow. Unfortunately deb packaging is not that
> simple...

I'd call this a wrong statement.  Have you any evidence for this?  I
think even writing down sentences like this is wrong since it might keep
people away from even trying.

> >Did you checked the changes file with lintian?  May be my suspiscion is
> >wrong and I need to change my mind about this.
> No I did not. Here, I believe convenience is important at least for
> the first steps of this effort.

However, convenience is not the Debian philosophy and me beeing occupied
by this philosophy can not agree to this.
 
> >[1] https://wiki.debian.org/DebianGis
> >[2] https://wiki.debian.org/DebianPureBlends/SoB
> >
> 
> This proposal could just become obsolete if we manage to find
> volunteers to do all the Debian packaging for 30+ projects the
> proper way. That would be awesome.

I'd volunteer to teach those people who fired up fpm to create a package
to continue from this to a real package.  Just redirect them to me and
I'll do the packaging in some kind of "Mentoring of Month"[1] like
effort.

Kind regards

     Andreas. 

[1] https://wiki.debian.org/DebianMed/MoM 

-- 
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