[DRE-maint] Github redirector available

[Gunnar Wolf]

Hi,

I just wanted to echo this as widely as needed ;-) So, copy/paste from
my blog - Yes, again.

/------------------------------------------------------------
|There is quite a bit of software whose upstream authors decide that,
|as they are already using Git for development, the main distribution
|channel should be GitHub [1] - This allows, yes, for quite a bit of
|flexibility, which many authors have taken advantage of.
|
|So, I just registered and set up GitHubRedir [2] to make it easier for
|packagers to take advantage of it.
|
|Specifically, what does this redirector make? Given that GitHub allows
|for downloading as a .zip or as a .tar.gz any given commit, it
|suddenly becomes enough to git tag with a version number, and GitHub
|magically makes that version available for download. Which is sweet!
|
|Sometimes it is a bit problematic, though, to follow their
|format. Github gives a listing of the tags for each particular
|prooject, and each of those tags has a download page, with both
|archiving formats.
|
|I won't go into too much detail here - Thing is, going over several
|pages becomes painful for Debian's uscan, widely used for various of
|our QA processes. There are other implemented redirectors, such as the
|one used for SourceForge.
|
|This redirector is mainly meant to be consumed by Debian's
|uscan. Anybody who finds this system useful can freely use it,
|although you might be better served by the rich, official GitHub.com
|interface.
|
|Anyway - Enough repeating what I said on the GitHubRedir base
|page. Find it useful? Go ahead and use it!
\------------------------------------------------------------

Now, what packages in the group's umbrella can directly benefit from
it? At a first glance:

- libshoulda-ruby (Antonio Terceiro)
- libwill-paginate-ruby (Gunnar Wolf)
- libacts-as-list-ruby (Gunnar Wolf, in WIP)
- rush (Michael Schutte, in WIP)

But, of course, I think this will ease the pain for building many
packages we have not tackled yet. 

[1] http://www.github.com/

[2] http://githubredir.debian.net/

-- 
Gunnar Wolf - gwolf at gwolf.org - (+52-55)5623-0154 / 1451-2244
PGP key 1024D/8BB527AF 2001-10-23
Fingerprint: 0C79 D2D1 2C4E 9CE4 5973  F800 D80E F35A 8BB5 27AF