Hi all whom I have been mentoring or otherwise discussing this topic with, While mentoring multiple people in 2025 I have noticed that reviewing Debian packaging, both for updates of existing packages and creation of new packages, is by far most convenient if there is a Merge Request on Salsa.
It is very easy for me to look at a MR, write my feedback, wait a couple of days, check new changes, respond and rinse and repeat until everything is ready. Open MRs stay on my "TODO list" and I don't forget anything. If there *is no MR* and I am forced to send feedback by email or by adding comments to the main git HEAD branch commits, it quickly becomes confusing to re-check and re-review things, in particular when trying to mentor multiple people working on dozens of pacakges. Thus my request to everyone I mentor or who otherwise on the Go team wants to have my reviews: please have a workflow that leads to a Merge Request on Salsa. This should be fairly easy. For example Vincent submitted a package update as MR in https://salsa.debian.org/go-team/packages/fzf/-/merge_requests/6. Jianfeng submitted a new package in https://salsa.debian.org/go-team/packages/apt-transport-oci/-/merge_requests/4 and Leonardo likewise in https://salsa.debian.org/go-team/packages/golang-github-offchainlabs-go-bitfield/-/merge_requests/2. I am sharing this as examples you can look at. Even better, to make repeating this super easy, I filed "mock MRs" with every single step and command documented: * https://salsa.debian.org/go-team/packages/golang-github-holiman-uint256/-/merge_requests/1 * https://salsa.debian.org/go-team/packages/golang-github-gonvenience-idem/-/merge_requests/1 * https://salsa.debian.org/go-team/packages/dyff/-/merge_requests/1 If you follow this pattern and file a MR in the Go team, feel free to add me as the reviewer! I can also review non-MR work, but I am just saying that if it is an MR, it is much easier for me personally. I am checking my dashboard at https://salsa.debian.org/dashboard/merge_requests?scope=all&state=merged&reviewer_username=otto on daily basis and promise to review and re-review all MRs quickly. - Otto PS. In particular with new Go packages we often discover upstream bugs. I also encourage people to submit fixes to them upstream as soon as possible, and you can ping me 'ottok' on GitHub/GitLab on those upstream submissions to help champion them. Easy upstream submissions is also why I advocate use of the git-buildpackage 'upstreamvcs' and 'gbp pq' features. More at https://optimizedbyotto.com/post/debian-packaging-from-git/
