[Pkg-xfce-devel] svn structure and 4.4 packaging

[Yves-Alexis Perez]

Jani Monoses wrote:
> 
>     Well, for me, trunk is the place where everything happens. At the
>     moment, everything is 4.2.x, so trunk should be 4.2.x. When it'll be
>     time to work on 4.3, we'll see (and possibly copy trunk to branches/4.2
>     and continue working on trunk).
> 
> 
>  I consider this unoptimal development practice since svn supports
> branches but hey
> it works well conseidering it's only 4.2 that is worked on currently. So
> svn is under-used
> in this case :)

Yeah, i don't really know how svn could be optmisedly (?) used.


> How do you get quick testing without packaging? By testing I mean not yours
> or mine who build from svn but the rest of the users? I am going this
> route because
> it makes perfect sense in a development distro such as ubuntu dapper and
> sid are.
> As for daily snapshot vs alpha releases, I really cannot convince
> upstream xfce to
> tag tarballs and do release legwork if they don't feel like it.

Well, snapshots vs releases aren't just a manner of tag. When a dev
thinks it's software is ready to do a release (even a
pre-alpha-unstable-release), he has good reasons. Daily snapshots are
automatically built and can be badly broken just because the dev wanted
to go to bed at this time. A pre release isn't automatic and is mean't
to be really tested. I don't know if I'm really clear.

> 
> And this attitude does not stop striking me as weird. This is debian
> _unstable_
> not stable, not even testing.  It would make more sense IMHO to users
> and upstream xfce
> to give them latest stuff in unstable. But as you say this is your game
> and you play by your rules :)

Yeah but latest "releasable" code. I think if we package daily snapshots
we can encounter bugs that would not be on a (whatever)-release.

> 
> 
>     > I think this would also make sense for debian experimental so if
>     others
>     > are interested too it would be
>     > nice to have this in your svn as well
>     > The preferred method of ubuntu packaging is using as much from debian
>     > and work with debian if possible
> 
>     yes, i'm ok with this
> 
> 
> great. If this means having the packages in svn how do you see the this
> relating to the trunk issue above?
> 
>     > to avoid too many gratuitous differences, and uploads to experimental
>     > would be fine with me to sync from
> 
>     i can't upload, so i don't know the work overhead, but uploading daily
>     snapshots to experimental for all xfce packages seems a bit too much. 
> 
> 
> well daily snapshots don't imply daily uploading of them :)

so how users could test ? what would be the benefits ?
> 
>     >
>     > what do you say?
>     >
>     I think we should wait for pre-releases (if any), and at least to wait
>     for a sign of Xfce dev. Panel moves too quickly at the moment (so does
>     thunar) to make a package.
> 
> 
> What I have realized more and more this past weeks/months is that
> waiting for a sign to make something to
> happen is far less likely to yield results than being (sometimes
> annoyingly) curious, poking, nudging ... you get it.
> Xfce and consequently debian packaging of it does not really have a
> schedule, which is fine but also has disadvantages.

So what ?

> 
> Panel indeed moves quickly but towards stability. Thunar and exo seem a
> bit open-ended still as far as
> features are concerned even though stable enough otherwise.

But you can have a mass breakage from one day to another.

I don't think testing each and every daily snapshot to see if it's
usable, then upload from time to time, is a good idea. That what
(whatever)-releases are for. And if Xfce devs don't do releases, they
may have good reasons. (lots of stuff moving etc..).

Though, asking them for releases («being curious, poking, nudging»)
can't hurd.

-- 
Yves-Alexis Perez

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