Really easy branching of Ubuntu packages

[Barry Warsaw]

We talked about this at the Platform Rally in Prague.

You know what would be really cool? bzr branch ubuntu:foo where 'foo' can be either the binary or source package name. This would always look up the source package name and give you the lp:ubuntu/foosrc checkout, however if that is out-of-date or has other problems, it would:

 * apt-get source foosrc
 * bzr add *
 * bzr commit

to give you a dvcs controlled source branch in all cases. It *might* be better to provide a warning and not do the apt-get source if there's a problem, but to support that with a switch (e.g. bzr branch ubuntu:foo --allow-aptget or some such).

[Barry Warsaw (barry)]

See also bug 609187 for a possibly related ui request.

[Jelmer Vernooij (jelmer)]

On Fri, 2010-07-23 at 14:44 +0000, Barry Warsaw wrote:
> We talked about this at the Platform Rally in Prague.
>
> You know what would be really cool? bzr branch ubuntu:foo where 'foo'
> can be either the binary or source package name. This would always look
> up the source package name and give you the lp:ubuntu/foosrc checkout,
> however if that is out-of-date or has other problems, it would:
>
> * apt-get source foosrc
> * bzr add *
> * bzr commit
>
> to give you a dvcs controlled source branch in all cases. It *might* be
> better to provide a warning and not do the apt-get source if there's a
> problem, but to support that with a switch (e.g. bzr branch ubuntu:foo
> --allow-aptget or some such).
FWIW it's already possible to use "bzr branch deb:foo" to do this for
the Debian sources, though that goes out to the VCS location declared in
the package (Vcs-Bzr/Vcs-Git/...) rather than to Launchpad.

Cheers,

Jelmer

[Barry Warsaw (barry)]

I have a branch at the project bzr-debuntu which adds ubuntu: and debian: urls (along with u: and d: shortcuts, as well as nice shortcuts for the distroseries). After chatting with James W, we agreed to merge it into bzr-bd, which I'm about to do. The changes are pretty simple; they actually call the lp_directory module to return the equivalent lp: branches). However, do you think having the debian: and d: schemes that make to Launchpad urls are too confusing when there's a deb: scheme with different semantics?

OTOH, I can't think of anything other than debian: for this.

Branch coming soon.

[James Westby (james-w)]

On Mon, 27 Sep 2010 17:42:42 -0000, Barry Warsaw <email address hidden> wrote:
> I have a branch at the project bzr-debuntu which adds ubuntu: and
> debian: urls (along with u: and d: shortcuts, as well as nice shortcuts
> for the distroseries). After chatting with James W, we agreed to merge
> it into bzr-bd, which I'm about to do. The changes are pretty simple;
> they actually call the lp_directory module to return the equivalent lp:
> branches). However, do you think having the debian: and d: schemes that
> make to Launchpad urls are too confusing when there's a deb: scheme with
> different semantics?
>
> OTOH, I can't think of anything other than debian: for this.

I agree, it is confusing, but I have no idea what else we would use.

Perhaps we could rename deb:, but I'm not sure what we would call that
either. Perhaps ask Jelmer, as he wrote it and uses it.

Thanks,

James

[Barry Warsaw (barry)]

perhaps s/deb:/vcs:/

What do you think Jelmer?

[Jelmer Vernooij (jelmer)]

Hi Barry!

Nice to see these two extra aliases.

As these locations would be the canonical locations for Ubuntu packages I agree "ubuntu:" is appropriate for the Ubuntu packages. I think using "debian:" for the Debian packages is confusing. E.g. "debian:samba4" on Debian systems would fetch from Launchpad while the primary branch is hosted on alioth and has a completely different revision history. Contributors can only submit bundles against the branch on alioth. What about something like "lp-debian:"?

"vcs:" might be confusing on e.g. Fedora systems with bzr installed. Perhaps "apt:" or "apt-vcs:" ?

Using single letters for Debian releases is a bad idea imho, there is some overlap there (e.g. sid and squeeze, etch and experimental) that is only confusing.

Just a thought; Given these add directory services are specific to Launchpad and don't rely on anything else in builddeb it seems to me that the Launchpad plugin would be a more appropriate place for them. That way people not using bzr-builddeb would also be able to use them, and they are less prone to break because of changes in bzrlib.plugins.launchpad.

[Barry Warsaw (barry)]

Hi Jelmer,

I see your point about the confusion with debian: but lp-debian: is so ugly! :) I don't like the dashes.

Maybe debianlp: which would still let us have the 'd:' shortcut. What do you think?

apt: is a nice replacement for deb:

I can see the sense it makes to add it to the launchpad (builtin) plugin. I don't have a strong opinion about it, except that maybe this is a nice little carrot to help people get into udd. But if you and James thinks it's better off in the launchpad plugin, let me know and I'll work up a branch for that.

Where is deb: added (so that I can work up a patch to change that to apt: too).

[Jelmer Vernooij (jelmer)]

Hi Barry,

On Tue, 2010-09-28 at 18:54 +0000, Barry Warsaw wrote:
> I see your point about the confusion with debian: but lp-debian: is so
> ugly! :) I don't like the dashes.
>
> Maybe debianlp: which would still let us have the 'd:' shortcut. What
> do you think?
debianlp: or deblp: sounds good to me. I still think the "d:" is a bad
idea for the reason mentioned earlier. At the very least we would have
to disable it in the bzr-builddeb we upload to Debian, but even so it
would still be bad to have Ubuntu in case e.g. an ubuntu member wants to
contribute a branch back to Debian.

> apt: is a nice replacement for deb:

> I can see the sense it makes to add it to the launchpad (builtin)
> plugin. I don't have a strong opinion about it, except that maybe this
> is a nice little carrot to help people get into udd. But if you and
> James thinks it's better off in the launchpad plugin, let me know and
> I'll work up a branch for that.
FWIW I think the lp plugin would be slightly more appropriate, but
either would be a good home for these directories.

> Where is deb: added (so that I can work up a patch to change that to
> apt: too).
It lives in bzr-builddeb's directory.py.

Cheers,

Jelmer

[James Westby (james-w)]

On Tue, 28 Sep 2010 18:54:46 -0000, Barry Warsaw <email address hidden> wrote:
> Hi Jelmer,
>
> I see your point about the confusion with debian: but lp-debian: is so
> ugly! :) I don't like the dashes.
>
> Maybe debianlp: which would still let us have the 'd:' shortcut. What
> do you think?

Do we need to provide directory services? We were discussing a
different command as well at some point. Would that serve the need?

> apt: is a nice replacement for deb:

Agreed.

> I can see the sense it makes to add it to the launchpad (builtin)
> plugin. I don't have a strong opinion about it, except that maybe this
> is a nice little carrot to help people get into udd. But if you and
> James thinks it's better off in the launchpad plugin, let me know and
> I'll work up a branch for that.

I would be fine with the LP plugin given what it is doing right now. If
we wanted to do extra things then it may not be appropriate.

> Where is deb: added (so that I can work up a patch to change that to
> apt: too).

__init__.py

Thanks,

James

[Barry Warsaw (barry)]

re: another command. we could certainly do that; it would allow us to do apt-get source when there's a problem with the source branch. but otoh, there shouldn't be problems with the source branches, right? <wink> i do like being able to just 'bzr branch' like normal.

re: debianlp: maybe we should just support ubuntu:squeeze/foo and ubuntu:lenny/foo. we do get into a tricky area here with shortcuts in the distroseries position though. for now i'm only supporting the distroseries that launchpad support (though hardcoded in the plugin rather than consulting lp). i think we can avoid name collisions, because "ubuntu:squeeze" would have to be the squeeze package's source branch in the default distroseries, while "ubuntu:squeeze/squeeze" would be the same package in debian squeeze. we're probably safe until ubuntu 13.10's squishy squeeze ;)

so how about this:

 * move the directory services to lp plugin
 * support ubuntu:<distroseries>/<package> where 'distroseries' can be any ubuntu or debian series
 * support ubuntu:<package> for default distroseries (yeah, but for ubuntu or debian? i say the former, and be explicit about the
   distroseries if you want debian
 * u: is an acceptable alias for ubuntu:
 * rename deb: to apt:

this would still let me 'bzr branch u:gtimelog' which is about as short as it gets. how's that sound?

[James Westby (james-w)]

On Tue, 28 Sep 2010 20:49:18 -0000, Barry Warsaw <email address hidden> wrote:
> re: another command. we could certainly do that; it would allow us to
> do apt-get source when there's a problem with the source branch. but
> otoh, there shouldn't be problems with the source branches, right?
> <wink> i do like being able to just 'bzr branch' like normal.

That's what we discussed in Prague.

> re: debianlp: maybe we should just support ubuntu:squeeze/foo and
> ubuntu:lenny/foo. we do get into a tricky area here with shortcuts in
> the distroseries position though. for now i'm only supporting the
> distroseries that launchpad support (though hardcoded in the plugin
> rather than consulting lp). i think we can avoid name collisions,
> because "ubuntu:squeeze" would have to be the squeeze package's source
> branch in the default distroseries, while "ubuntu:squeeze/squeeze" would
> be the same package in debian squeeze. we're probably safe until ubuntu
> 13.10's squishy squeeze ;)

> so how about this:
>
> * move the directory services to lp plugin
> * support ubuntu:<distroseries>/<package> where 'distroseries' can be
> any ubuntu or debian series

Seems a little hedgemonic to me.

> * support ubuntu:<package> for default distroseries (yeah, but for ubuntu or debian? i say the former, and be explicit about the
> distroseries if you want debian
> * u: is an acceptable alias for ubuntu:
> * rename deb: to apt:
>
> this would still let me 'bzr branch u:gtimelog' which is about as short
> as it gets. how's that sound?

I like the push to make this easier for people to deal with, but I'm not
sure a quest for the fewest characters is necessarily the right way.

I think Jelmer's concerns are well founded, but I'm not sure how best to
reconcile then with our desires at this point.

Thanks,

James

[Barry Warsaw (barry)]

The u: shortcut isn't terribly important. Though i think it would be nice, I can live without it.

I definitely want to be able to fairly easily and obviously get to source branches in Ubuntu and Debian.

[Jelmer Vernooij (jelmer)]

On Tue, 2010-09-28 at 21:16 +0000, James Westby wrote:
> On Tue, 28 Sep 2010 20:49:18 -0000, Barry Warsaw <email address hidden> wrote:
> > re: another command. we could certainly do that; it would allow us to
> > do apt-get source when there's a problem with the source branch. but
> > otoh, there shouldn't be problems with the source branches, right?
> > <wink> i do like being able to just 'bzr branch' like normal.
> That's what we discussed in Prague.
A directory service also seems the most natural to me. There are quite a
few commands that support directory services and being able to do e.g.
"bzr missing -v ubuntu:tdb" is quite neat.

> > re: debianlp: maybe we should just support ubuntu:squeeze/foo and
> > ubuntu:lenny/foo. we do get into a tricky area here with shortcuts in
> > the distroseries position though. for now i'm only supporting the
> > distroseries that launchpad support (though hardcoded in the plugin
> > rather than consulting lp). i think we can avoid name collisions,
> > because "ubuntu:squeeze" would have to be the squeeze package's source
> > branch in the default distroseries, while "ubuntu:squeeze/squeeze" would
> > be the same package in debian squeeze. we're probably safe until ubuntu
> > 13.10's squishy squeeze ;)
>
> > so how about this:
> >
> > * move the directory services to lp plugin
> > * support ubuntu:<distroseries>/<package> where 'distroseries' can be
> > any ubuntu or debian series
> Seems a little hedgemonic to me.
It seems strange to me that debian distroseries would live in the
"ubuntu:" namespace. If we e.g. end up also importing mepis or gnewsense
into Launchpad this may become problematic (and even more confusing).

> > * support ubuntu:<package> for default distroseries (yeah, but for ubuntu or debian? i say the former, and be explicit about the
> > distroseries if you want debian
> > * u: is an acceptable alias for ubuntu:
> > * rename deb: to apt:
> >
> > this would still let me 'bzr branch u:gtimelog' which is about as short
> > as it gets. how's that sound?
>
> I like the push to make this easier for people to deal with, but I'm not
> sure a quest for the fewest characters is necessarily the right way.
>
> I think Jelmer's concerns are well founded, but I'm not sure how best to
> reconcile then with our desires at this point.
We all seem to agree that supporting "ubuntu:" for Ubuntu packages and
renaming "deb:" to "apt:" is a good idea. Fetching Ubuntu packages seems
like the most common use case for udd anyway. I don't want to dismiss
the other bits of your branch but perhaps we can get those in first then
consider the other things?

I personally prefer "ubuntu:" over "u:" as well, because it is clearer
and not that much longer. Somebody reading over my shoulder or reading a
blog post will probably be able to guess what "bzr log ubuntu:samba"
does. There obviously is a tradeoff there between readability and
command length there. I'm glad we don't have "bzr log -r a:../bla" as an
alias of "bzr log -r ancestor:../bla", but that we do have -r as an
alias of --revision.

Cheers,

Jelmer

[Barry Warsaw (barry)]

On Sep 28, 2010, at 10:11 PM, Jelmer Vernooij wrote:

>It seems strange to me that debian distroseries would live in the
>"ubuntu:" namespace. If we e.g. end up also importing mepis or
>gnewsense into Launchpad this may become problematic (and even more
>confusing).

Fair enough.

I'd still like a shortcut for the Debian branches in Launchpad...

>> I think Jelmer's concerns are well founded, but I'm not sure how
>> best to reconcile then with our desires at this point.
>We all seem to agree that supporting "ubuntu:" for Ubuntu packages and
>renaming "deb:" to "apt:" is a good idea. Fetching Ubuntu packages
>seems like the most common use case for udd anyway. I don't want to
>dismiss the other bits of your branch but perhaps we can get those in
>first then consider the other things?

+1

>I personally prefer "ubuntu:" over "u:" as well, because it is clearer
>and not that much longer. Somebody reading over my shoulder or reading
>a blog post will probably be able to guess what "bzr log ubuntu:samba"
>does. There obviously is a tradeoff there between readability and
>command length there. I'm glad we don't have "bzr log -r a:../bla" as
>an alias of "bzr log -r ancestor:../bla", but that we do have -r as an
>alias of --revision.

Sounds good. I can live without u:

How about this as a plan of action:

* rename deb: to apt:
* add ubuntu: to the lp directory service
* add debianlp: to the lp directory service

If y'all agree, I'll port my patch over to bzr.

-Barry

[Barry Warsaw (barry)]

Oh, one other question. If we don't support u: as a shortcut for ubuntu:, do we want to support ubuntu:m/foo as a shortcut for ubuntu:maverick/foo? I'm assuming "no".