launchpad-dev team mailing list archive

[Curtis Hovey <curtis.hovey@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Thu, 2009-12-17 at 18:01 -0200, Christian Robottom Reis wrote:
> On Wed, Dec 16, 2009 at 12:44:27PM -0500, Curtis Hovey wrote:
> > 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
> 
> I don't understand the second part here -- what do you mean "indicate it
> built packages" -- what do you mean by "it" and for what release?

The project built a deb for a version it released, it may have used a
PAA to build the deb. The deb was either uploaded to the project, hosted
in a PPA, or is somewhere in cyberspace.

> > 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.
> 
> I think instead we could just allow the links to be done to
> distribution, and where possible the annotation with distroseries is
> added, where it's not available, just let it be. 

I do not see how this helps. We still need to register every
distribution, and it is clear, user do not care about every
distribution. They barely give a toss for Debian.

Of the bugs reported, none are for linking to Fedora. But we have had
many about not being able to link to an older Ubuntu series (The link to
do so was hard to find and the form asks for information the project
rarely understands)

But the real issue is not about stopping users from linking to a
distribution. but to clarify which packages are "officially" in
distributions. 1/3 of lucid packaging links are to source package names
there were never published in a primary or partner Ubuntu archive. The
bugs about these links imply we should have never let them be created,
but I think we need to examine why so many user (clearly upstream
projects) are creating these.

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

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