ubuntugis team mailing list archive

[Cameron Shorter <cameron.shorter@xxxxxxxxx>]

Thanks Alan,
Your answers are really helping me get up to speed.
I want to capture some of this in the wiki.
Comments inline ...

Alan Boudreault wrote:
> Cameron Shorter wrote:
>   
> > Alan Boudreault wrote:
> >     
> > <snip>
> > Open questions for me:
> > * What are the deadlines for getting packages into the various
> > Debian/Ubuntu repositories?
> >     
> I don't think deadlines are very important. We just do the job as soon
> as we have time to do it.
Deadlines are not important if you are working on this project in your 
spare time, but they are important in the business world when what you 
are trying to achieve are linked business milestones.
Eg: Like many on these OSGeo lists, LISAsoft has a business based around 
integrating Open Source Geospatial with other systems. So it is in our 
interests to see Open Source promoted at high profile events like FOSS4G 
(Oct 2009). There will be a LiveDVD built for FOSS4G, and the best way 
to build a LiveDVD is from .deb files, and even better, from Ubuntu 
universe so delegates can go home and try it out on their Ubuntu system.

So if I want to have my favorite package in the LiveDVD, or in Ubuntu 
universe for FOSS4G, when do I need to have it packaged by? Once we know 
this date, we can go to the key package owners and encourage them to get 
their projects packaged in time.


>  I want to clarify something: i don't really
> care about the real ubuntu packages status because it will always be out
> of date. Ubuntu packages are always synced with the debian unstable ones
> by the Ubuntu maintainers. That's why i prefer to work in parallel with
> DebianGIS AND upload lastest packages in our ubuntugis repository (on
> lauchpad). This repository is not related to Ubuntu but will be the
> official UbuntuGIS repository for those who need up-to-date packages.
>   
Excellent. That is just the sort of information I was trying to work 
out, and we need to explain on our Ubuntu wiki. Can you please expand on 
this process. Is it:

1. Extract tar.gz from project's download URL.
2. Copy into http://svn.debian.org/wsvn/pkg-grass/packages
3. Build .deb release
4. copy .deb into Debian Unstable (where and how?)
5. optional: Package a latest UbuntuGIS
5.1 copy to UbuntuGIS subversion repository (where?)
5.2 store in a .deb download URL (where?)
6. Ubuntu maintainers will copy from debian unstable to next ubuntu release

> > * What is the upstream status and versions of all the Ubuntu packages?
> > How should we maintain this information? (This should be shared
> > between DebianGIS and UbuntuGIS).
> >     
> About the upstream status, isn't your thermometer what is actually doing?
>   
The script automatically extracts the status of packages in debian and 
ubuntu releases.
What is going to be harder to maintain is the latest release of each 
project because it hasn't been aggregated anywhere.

> > * How should we track issues and status of packaging?
> >     
> We will need a BTS for sure... we could begin with the lauchpad one. But
> again, we need a private lauchpad ;)
>   
ok, I've been doing a lot of reading on launchpad. Seems like a good 
thing if all projects are using launchpad. Unfortunately Debian doesn't 
use launchpad.

Note: issues raised in Ubuntu can't be pushed back to the Debian issue 
tracker.
Should we consider migrating DebianGIS over to launchpad?

> > * What versioning system should we use?
> >     
> Lauchpad offers a free Git repository (i think).
Launchpad apparently uses bazaar rather than git. It seems that bazaar 
can synchronize with svn and cvs repositories, which could be good for 
importing upstream libraries.



>  Even if i'm absolutly
> not familiar with Git.. if we don't have any place to setup a SVN on, we
> can use the git.
>   
> > A very high value contribution would be to package one of the java GIS
> > packages as this has not been done yet and will help open up the whole
> > java stack to packaging.
> > Ladon Blake, this might be something you would be interested in, by
> > packaging Open JUMP?
> >
> >     
> > <snip>
> >     
>
> Alan
>
>   


--
Cameron Shorter
Geospatial Systems Architect
Tel: +61 (0)2 8570 5050
Mob: +61 (0)419 142 254

Think Globally, Fix Locally
Geospatial Solutions enhanced with Open Standards and Open Source
http://www.lisasoft.com