Re: Some questions about Debian developers

2003-04-12 Thread Christian Surchi
On Sun, Apr 13, 2003 at 02:52:23AM +0200, Michael Banck wrote:
> > There is no reason to blame people that wants to be anonymous.
> > Anonymity and privacy should be rights all over the world.
> 
> F^WBlaming people is a right, too :P

Destroying absurd commonplaces too! ;-)

-- 
Christian Surchi, [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED] |   ICQ 
www.debian.org - www.softwarelibero.it - www.firenze.linux.it| 38374818
I have often regretted my speech, never my silence. -- Publilius Syrus




Re: Some questions about Debian developers

2003-04-12 Thread Michael Banck
On Sun, Apr 13, 2003 at 02:28:23AM +0200, Christian Surchi wrote:
> On Sun, Apr 13, 2003 at 12:59:05AM +0100, Andrew Suffield wrote:
> > People who don't use their real names are either too stupid or too
> > embarrassed by what they are saying. Either way, reading the mail they
> > send merely wastes valuable seconds.
> 
> There is no reason to blame people that wants to be anonymous.
> Anonymity and privacy should be rights all over the world.

F^WBlaming people is a right, too :P

Michael




Re: Some questions about Debian developers

2003-04-12 Thread Christian Surchi
On Sun, Apr 13, 2003 at 12:59:05AM +0100, Andrew Suffield wrote:
> People who don't use their real names are either too stupid or too
> embarrassed by what they are saying. Either way, reading the mail they
> send merely wastes valuable seconds.

There is no reason to blame people that wants to be anonymous.
Anonymity and privacy should be rights all over the world.

If you are not interested, please ignore tha requests, as several other
people did.

bye

-- 
Christian Surchi, [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED] |   ICQ 
www.debian.org - www.softwarelibero.it - www.firenze.linux.it| 38374818
Mathematicians practice absolute freedom. -- Henry Adams




Re: Some questions about Debian developers

2003-04-12 Thread Andrew Suffield
On Sat, Apr 12, 2003 at 06:56:51PM +0200, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:



People who don't use their real names are either too stupid or too
embarrassed by what they are saying. Either way, reading the mail they
send merely wastes valuable seconds.

-- 
  .''`.  ** Debian GNU/Linux ** | Andrew Suffield
 : :' :  http://www.debian.org/ | Dept. of Computing,
 `. `'  | Imperial College,
   `- -><-  | London, UK


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Re: Some questions about Debian developers

2003-04-12 Thread Bob Proulx
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> 
> 1) What kind of developing does a Debian developer? Are you developing the 
> packages (*.deb files)?

Yes.  But that is only part of the entire task.

> I ask because I want to understand why this is so complicated. There are 
> "apt"-scripts to create *.deb-files from source-packages (I mean *.tar or 
> *tar.gz files).

Complicated is in the eye of the beholder.  The .deb packages
themselves are just archives of gzip'd tar files.  Which seem very
simple.  It is true that there are several different scripts used in
the process of building a .deb package.  But they don't seem very
complicated once you try them.  The entire process is documented quite
well in the developer manual.  However as is true of many projects the
documentation can almost always stand improvement.  Suggestions for
documentation improvement are always welcome.

> What are the hard parts of creating the deb-packages of new 
> source-files why the Debian developers are working so long for a new 
> version of the Debian stable release (3.1 or 4.0)?

You misunderstand.  It is not difficult at all to make a package for a
new piece of software.  That is the very easy part.  The hard part is
making that new piece of software play well with other software.
Frequently there are bad interactions.  Here is an example.  The
option of one program changes.  Another program uses the first program
and so it needs to change too.  An interaction while in isolation each
package stands fine on its own.  With ten thousand packages in the
Debian archive keeping the bad interactions minimized is a difficult
task.

> 2) Are you developing some fixes on the source files of the 
> upstream-developers?

Many times yes.  But there is a strong pressure by policy to push
those fixes back into the upstream version.  Debian tries hard not to
keep those fixes closed but instead pushes those back upstream so that
all users of the software benefit, even those not using Debian.

> I ask because I want to understand what kind of fixes and
> customizations a developer have to write to make his applications
> Debian-compliant.

If your software package is well behaved then I would not expect any
customizations would be needed to make it Debian compliant.  "Well
behaved" has some room for debate.  But basically a good upstream
package works well in Debian, and probably other distributions too,
with no changes.

> I plan some development for scientific-calculations and this
> information would help me to write Debian-compliant software(I want
> to create Debain-packages so others can install my software without
> much difficulties).

Excellent!

A good source of discussion for people starting out is on the
debian-mentors mailing list.  Try to follow the documentation for
packaging your software.  If you run into trouble, ask questions on
the debian-mentors list.

> 3) What are the quality "specs" that define which package can get from 
> testing to unstable to stable?

  http://www.debian.org/devel/testing

You can find that link by going to the main Debian site and seeing
"Developers's Corner" and following that to work in progress section
where you find "The testing distribution".

Good luck with your project!

Bob


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Some questions about Debian developers

2003-04-12 Thread debian_noob
Dear Debian Developers,

I am very new to Debian and know I want to dive deeper into Debian.
For this I have some questions:

1) What kind of developing does a Debian developer? Are you developing the 
packages (*.deb files)?
I ask because I want to understand why this is so complicated. There are 
"apt"-scripts to create *.deb-files from source-packages (I mean *.tar or 
*tar.gz files). What are the hard parts of creating the deb-packages of new 
source-files why the Debian developers are working so long for a new version of 
the Debian stable release (3.1 or 4.0)?

2) Are you developing some fixes on the source files of the upstream-developers?
I ask because I want to understand what kind of fixes and customizations a 
developer have to write to make his applications Debian-compliant. I plan some 
development for scientific-calculations and this information would help me to 
write Debian-compliant software(I want to create Debain-packages so others can 
install my software without much difficulties).

3) What are the quality "specs" that define which package can get from testing 
to unstable to stable?


I already started reading the documents for Debian-developers but I couldn't 
find answers about my specific questions-yet.


Thank you for reading my mail.

Thanks for all who will answer my questions.

Your
debian_noob
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