On 03/08/10 00:16, Lane, Ryan wrote: > Please Debian, keep your version of MediaWiki up to date at least to the > oldest stable release, and please send your fixes upstream when you find > unfixed bugs.
Debian Stable is stable in the sense that it doesn't change very often, it's not stable in the sense of fewer bugs. If there was a way to fix this, it would have been done a long time ago. Debian is a weird, bureacratic, conservative community, somewhat inscrutable to outsiders. It reminds me of Wikipedia. On 04/08/10 02:45, Niklas Laxström wrote: > On 3 August 2010 18:14, Aryeh Gregor <simetrical+wikil...@gmail.com> wrote: >> > I'm thankful that the Debian MediaWiki package at least *works*. Not >> > that the same can be said of all their packages either (OpenSSL, >> > anyone?). Maybe if we provided .debs and RPMs, people would be less >> > prone to use the distro packages. > That just creates more problems: > * bad quality distro packages > * bad quality our own packages (while we know MediaWiki, we are not > experts in packaging) > * lots of confusion Last time I looked at our Debian package, it was pretty bad. The custom patches were mostly unnecessary, or could be made unnecessary with a one-line hook, incorporated upstream. However, the worst thing about it was the fact that after you installed it, you then had to run the web-based installer, typing some very specific things into the database fields, in order to make it work. Installing the package only installs the files, and upgrading the package only upgrades the files, neither operation will touch the database. I decided that to fix the Debian package, there were two basic things that needed to happen: 1) Write a new installer, that makes it possible for dpkg to trigger DB installs and upgrades. 2) Build a relationship with the Debian maintainer, and in time, perhaps take over their job. Item 1 was my motivation to start the new-installer branch, but I didn't really get close to finishing it. Luckily some other people have picked up the ball and we might see it in 1.17, although the dpkg interface will probably have to wait until later. Item 2 would be a procedure along the lines of: * Write a new package that uses the features of the new installer. * Ask the maintainer to upload this version, explaining how awesome it is. * Integrate Debian package generation into the make-release script. * After each minor release, nag the maintainer to apply the automatically generated patches. * When they get sick of that, ask them to sponsor your request for Debian Developer status. * Upload new packages to Debian on each new release. The main targets would be Unstable, Testing and Ubuntu Universe. I think Stable is mostly unfixable and not worth bothering with. I've written a few dpkg packages for Wikimedia's custom repository. It's tedious, there's a steep learning curve, but I don't think it's beyond the capabilities of our core dev team. -- Tim Starling _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
