[Pkg-javascript-devel] Small Node.js packages in NEW

[Daniel Pocock]

On 09/04/15 09:18, Dominique Dumont wrote:

>> I don't have a better solution for small packages, but as long as there is 
>> no improvement in package handling, I think there should be no exception. 
>> I would still prefer the bundling of several small packages into bigger 
>> chunks. Isn't git able to handle several upstreams in one repository?
> 
> Here's the main problem of bundling: it will (not might) require more work 
> from packaging teams: improve tools, and more complex and frequent work to 
> upgrade packages, more difficulties to handle dependencies, breakages...
> Unfortunately, packaging teams are all understaffed and we all must strive 
> to make these teams more efficient in the quality and quantity of packages they
> can deliver.
> 

I also have concerns about this

The ultimate outcome of such things is that people go elsewhere, e.g.
they publish their code in NPM or Maven or whatever and they don't care
too much if it can be in Debian or Ubuntu.  This is actually quite sad
because many of the other platforms out there are at the other end of
the spectrum, they don't insist on sensible licensing, they don't have
any process of review.  Basically, they don't have an FTP master team.

I just want to put a few ideas out there to help people progress with this:

a) would the FTP masters accept small packages from NEW if they are only
there to enable the update of some other package that we already have in
Debian, maybe for a period of 6 months from now while a better strategy
is discussed?

b) could the FTP masters operate a separate catalog for NodeJS packages
and people would add this into sources.list if they want this stuff?

c) would we consider a temporary nodejs-modules.deb omnibus package
solution, with something like:

Provides: node-foo, node-bar, ...
Conflicts: node-foo, node-bar, ...

and then no other package should explicitly depend on nodejs-modules?
This package would just contain stuff that is relatively stable perhaps.

Regards,

Daniel