We currently maintain most Ubuntu Desktop packages in bzr branches and use bzr-builddeb in merge mode [1] with packaging stored in lp:~ubuntu-desktop/package_name/ubuntu. The other option was to use normal mode [2], but this was not chosen at the time due to the size of checkouts.
My experience since moving to bzr branches: - Much, much faster updating of packages - Branching packages is possible (e.g. working in a PPA) - Patches are a little bit harder to do, as the branch doesn't contain the files from the source tarball - People are often ignoring the branches and uploading directly (or forgetting do a bzr push) which means changes are sometimes dropped by accident - People often do merge requests to lp:ubuntu/package_name, even when there is a packaging branch So, I propose that we move all the current packaging branches to using lp:ubuntu/package_name branches. We have a few branches using this mode and have had good success with them. Some issues that will remain: - It is possible to screw up the branches so that bzr merge-package throws a confusing error (I keep doing it). Perhaps we need some hooks in bzr to stop this from occurring. If it can be broken, it will be broken (repeatedly). - Branches with a lot of history take a lot of time/bandwidth to check out. This adds a barrier to contributors, but is something that bzr hopefully will solve in the future [3] --Robert [1] http://jameswestby.net/bzr/builddeb/user_manual/merge.html [2] http://jameswestby.net/bzr/builddeb/user_manual/normal.html [3] https://bugs.launchpad.net/bzr/+bug/46561 -- ubuntu-desktop mailing list ubuntu-desktop@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-desktop
