Hi Samo,

On Fri, Mar 15, 2024 at 06:42:54PM +0100, Samo Pogačnik wrote:
> Dne 11.03.2024 (pon) ob 20:18 +0100 je Daniel Gröber napisal(a):
> > Are you still interested in maintaining git-subrepo in Debian?
>
> please excuse me for my late response, but my situation from 2020/21 when
> we proposed the git-subrepo ITP changed in a way that i am spending most
> of my free time off-line. With this on mind i am not sure, if i am
> responsive enough for a maintainers job (i might be off-line for a few
> weeks from time to time).

Given that git-subrepo doesn't have much upstream activity these days I
don't find that very concerning at all. In fact Debian development is
pretty well suited to an offline workflow -- if only because the tools we
use were designed so long ago that having no internet was still common ;)

Only thing I would recommend you get yourself is a setup where you can
send/read your email offline and without Debian stuff getting lost.

As long as you surface regularly and especially some time before it's
release'o'clock it doesn't matter much. Worst case I'm expected to deal
with any packages under my sponsorship umbrella so the responsibility
doesn't rest enrirely on you anyway.

Now you may wonder "why don't I just do it then" and I just find having
someone else on board that cares (more intensly) about a package helps make
the drudgery of maintanance more fun ;)

> However, i am tempted to push this through and give git-subrepo more
> audience.  Unfortunately i am more experienced in embedded Linux (yocto /
> openembedded / bitbake) than in debian packaging and my desktop is more
> or less Ubuntu.

Not a big deal either. The packaging should mostly be done IIRC and since
subrepo is just a simple shell script it's about the simplest thing to
package I can imagine, no need to worry there.

The main job(s) of a maintainer are responding to bugs, fixing or
forwarding them, communicating with upstream and reviewing new versions,
perhaps writing new docs if you can see users struggling. All of which are
more about humans than about computer obscurities.

As for the Ubuntu bit. There are tons of ways to get a Debian development
environment on your system, I don't know what the easiest one is for you
since that depends on what you're familiar with. Docker is certainly
possible and AFAIK the dockerhub images are maintained by DDs.

You just have to keep in mind to build/test with Debian unstable since
that's where the actual development happens. Depending on whether you want
git-subrepo to also be available for the current release (bookworm) we
could also publish to the backports repo but that does double the amount of
package building/testing work we have to do.

> If you think that may shortcomings

I don't think about people that way, what you call shortcomings I call
*untapped potential* ;)

> I would very much appreciate any guidance regarding debian packaging
> procedures and needed packaging/testing environment.

A good place to start is https://wiki.debian.org/Packaging

If you prefer a talk format there's Lucas' (excellent) tutorial
https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/packaging-tutorial/packaging-tutorial.en.pdf
I can't find a recording of it but the slides are pretty extensive.

In video format there is
https://debconf22.debconf.org/talks/79-introduction-to-setting-up-the-debian-packaging-development-environment/
but I can't vouch for that one.

We can also do a call to figure out where you're at and what info you need
because the huge scope of the general packaging related documentation can
be a bit overwhelming and confusing, even if what you need to know is like
5% of that.

> And of course congratulations on becoming a DD!

Yey, now the real work begins ;)

--Daniel

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