[pkg-fso-maint] (no subject)

[Steffen Moeller]

Herriot, Nicholas, VF-Group wrote:
> Yikes! Still sounds very much black magic!

:) uh no, it is easy. You have Debian or Ubuntu packages already, right? And they are
built from the source code? Then it is really easy. Who did the packaging, was it you?

> OK we have a new release candidate which is our 2.15 release. It looks
> much nicer than the current version, has many more bug fixes, has
> plug-in support for approx 50+  USB Modems, supports contact lists, SMS,
> has email bindings to evolution (pulls phone numbers from evolution
> email contacts), will work out the box for every Vodafone op-co (no
> config of APN, SMSC etc) but can be configured to work with any
> Operator, will work with pre-pay and post pay SIM's, supports PUK PIN
> and PIN control, you can force GPRS or 3G, shows network strength, and
> will even cope with SMS bugs between different USB modem vendors (such
> as the UCS Ericsson issue on recent dongles stopping you reading contact
> list from the SIM).

This reads real good.

For me the problem always was with the storage vs serial which never was sufficiently
stably working. Anything that helps here is welcome.

> Our Version 3.0 is due out in a month or so. I hope to have D-Bus fully
> integrated. So this will work with Network Manager as well.

Ultimately lovely.

> I'd really like to get our 2.15 into Debian and go through the process a
> few times. I suspect that we would have 3.0 in before Debian release
> moves to stable. When would that happen?

A freeze for the new release is expected in late 2009 with Squeeze becoming the new stable
in spring next year. The freezes are usually in time, the releases never.


> On your questions
> -----------------
> 
> 1) It'll get done, it's now on our JFDI list. We built for Ubunutu but
> it's really packaged up using all the Deb tools and should work fine
> with Debian. I'll push through a specific section on the site just for
> Debian, I'll use the swirls and I'll package up with instructions. I'll
> let you review it on our http://contentstaging.betavine.net site.
> 
> OK, on the face to face meeting. Where are you based? (If you live in
> Australia we have a problem! :-( ....) If you live close to the South
> East England I can offer you a lunch at Vodafone HQ with the meeting?

:) I am residing a RyanAir Stansted hop away in Luebeck. But if you could check with
https://nm.debian.org/gpg_offer.php#GB  (no idea why it is not UK) then you find plenty of
folks in your larger area to meet up with.

> I'll have a read through the guide tonight with a cup of coffee - or
> two! I'm seeing a horrible process in front of Betavine! :-) .... OK on
> the email front, sorry for my ignorance why can't I use my
> Nicholas.Herriot at vodafone.com email?

That would be fine. It should just be a well-defined individual who is identifiable by a
key, not some larger crowd saying "it was not me".

You can also have multiple email addresses added to a single GPG key, you should just not
share the key with others.

> One of the other developers says
> it's because Vodafone is a commercial entity, is that true? No matter,
> Betavine is the black horse at Vodafone, I also have a
> Nicholas.Herriot at betavine.net account which is our Open Source face to
> the community anyway.

I suggest to have a key with both email addresses, not two keys.

> On the OpenMoko question. Yes we have several OpenMoko devices here.

That is really nice to hear.

> One
> of them has been flashed with Android. The devices themselves are not
> exactly consumer grade. :-)

At least they should have some easier way to take the battery out.

> ... We would love to work with OpenMoko
> guys, and in fact are looking for things to do on this platform.

You could come up with some AppStore analogon - for all your Vodaphone customers that seek
some extra excitement. The Maemo folks should truly come up with it.

> I can
> provide OpenMoko with a page, a link into Vodafone, news articles
> anything really. Just let me know what kind of things you have in mind
> and I'm sure we can help out or be very active in this area.

I can't tell, really. My contributions are only to the install.sh for
Debian, organised via pkg-fso-maint at lists.alioth.debian.org . You could help with web
space that offers the working instances that install.sh could download and install on the
SD when the debootstrap does not work (which happens all the time since some new version
introduces some incompatibility on others - we work on unstable and experimental).

And I think it would just be nice if someone of your team could be subscribed to the
list(s) to stay tuned until some idea arises.

Coming back to the original plan - we should start with a package for 2.15. I need to ask
about the exactl whereabouts of your source code for me to check out or otherwise
download. It would be nice if the debian folder could somehow be separated, but this is
not a requirement. For many software projects we are keeping the debian folder in a
separate directly to let upstream, the maintainer and the sponsor improve on the packaging
together. That separate directory should then also be on your community island, I presume.
Otherwise we have alioth.debian.org for such. But we can just start without any such
extra, just point me to the sources you want in Debian, please.

Many greetings

Steffen