launchpad-dev team mailing list archive

[Curtis Hovey <curtis.hovey@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

About 1/3 of all packaging links between Lucid and upstream projects are
to source package that are not in Lucid. I think there are two causes
for this. The first is that links are not validated because the design
allows upstreams to link to *any* distribution series. The second is
that users have co-opted this feature in an effort to indicate it built
packages. We need to re-examine our intent from both Ubuntu's and the
upstream's perspective.


Linking to other distributions?
-------------------------------

The feature is limited because the distributions and their series must
be registered in Launchpad. Even if they are, Launchpad does not know
the versions in other distributions to present to the user. This is not
entirely true because Launchpad does know something of Debian, but that
information is always stale and not immediately available. So of the
many thousands of packaging link, this is a summary on the non-Ubuntu
links:
        
        Debian 76
        Guadalinex 4
        Gentoo 1

To support other distributions, Launchpad records the *kind* of
packaging: primary or included. Ubuntu only cares about primary links
because what it cares about is knowing the bug tracker, and development
branch of the upstream. The 'included' links are a distraction for
Ubuntu. They are also confusing to upstreams; packaging is not their
first concern.

PROPOSAL: If we choose to desupport other distros, we can remove the
confusing aspect of the packaging form.


Linking to packages not in primary archives
-------------------------------------------

I suspect that the 1/3 of impossible packaging links are created by
upstreams that have created a packages that are uploaded to the project
or in a PPA. The story is simple, though the end is always tragic

      * Upstream creates an Ubuntu package for Karmic.
      * Upstream does not see a way to link a archive to the project.
      * Upstream uses <project>/<series>/+addpackage to state that a
        package was made.
      * Upstream is saddened to see that Launchpad does not know the
        version of the package, and the links do not go to the archive;
        they go to a source package that says the package does not
        exist.

Launchpad could decide to ignore this issue, but the
distroseries/+packaging does not want to show this links. Filtering this
information in the model is somewhat convoluted.  The links are
confusing to users when looking at the project or the distroseries since
they always look broken.

Launchpad could verify that the package is in the distroseries and
prevent upstream from creating impossible links. This ensures that every
package listed will have an official version number listed. This may
disappoint upstream users use consider their packages just as important
as Ubuntu's official packages.

Launchpad could ask the upstream user to specify that the link is not
for an official archive, and possibly allow the user to specify a PPA.
This overlaps with the official-project-ppas feature that we hope to
build in our life time.

-- 
__Curtis C. Hovey_________
http://launchpad.net/

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