Not really an "Ubuntu Packaging Guide"

[Scott Kitterman]

This guide only covers UDD, not the tools and processes that (I believe) most Ubuntu developers use. It should either reflect the mature and reliable toolset that is normallly used or be renamed to make it clear this is not a general packaging guide.

[Daniel Holbach (dholbach)]

It's a good idea to also cover the traditional tools and link to them in the current articles. Particularly for cases like where the importer currently has difficulties this makes sense and will provide "a way out of trouble". I just filed bug 809925 to track this.

Generally UDD is the future of Ubuntu development. It's not a distant future and it is lived already, so I'm not quite sure what we would fix by renaming the guide. It would require us to rename/shuffle-around/etc. and after some time revert it back again. This would create another problem: When would it be reverted back? When a gremium decides? When nobody objects any more?

Also do I feel it's very hard to write a "general packaging guide" if you are trying to capture the workflows of all kinds of developers. There is and always will be many ways to "do it" and it's fine for some teams to try out something new and use tools that suit them. The down-side of this is obviously that new contributors will always be baffled by the amount of different tools that can get the job done or even are expected to be used in some circumstances. This is why we decided in a lot of conversations about this project that we want to have simple task-based articles that are straight-forward and help them solve a specific problem but point out in knowledge-base articles how other approaches might work, or how more advanced features work.

[Scott Kitterman (kitterman)]

Except right now UDD is the advanced feature that's not suitable for new users. It's entirely backwards.

[Scott Kitterman (kitterman)]

Either change the name to describe what it is or change the content to match the name. I don't see any other way that is correct.

[Stefano Rivera (stefanor)]

I can well understand that most seasoned Ubuntu Developers are avoiding UDD. I tend to avoid it (mostly for bandwidth reasons), but the new users seem to be using it. Looking at the sponsorship queue, 3/4 of the requests right now are UDD merge proposals. And the current documentation isn't UDD-oriented.

So either people are wanting to learn the most future-proof methods, or they prefer to use VCSs. New ubuntu developers have mostly heard that they can do packaging in bzr, and they want to learn that first. I don't discourage it unless they are working with quilt.

> Except right now UDD is the advanced feature that's not suitable for new users.

I agree that UDD has some major issues (particularly: out of date branches, quilt), but it may be too late, we could have already lost this one.

Obviously these docs do need to include non-UDD workflows too, but I'd be hesitant to move UDD to an appendix.

[Scott Kitterman (kitterman)]

I didn't say move it to an appendix. I said don't call it an Ubuntu Packaging
Guide if it's a UDD Packaging Guide.

[Barry Warsaw (barry)]

On Jul 13, 2011, at 09:52 PM, Stefano Rivera wrote:

>I agree that UDD has some major issues (particularly: out of date
>branches, quilt), but it may be too late, we could have already lost
>this one.

I wouldn't categorize it as "lost". I think it's great that UDD is thriving
despite the warts :). I also know that the bzr/udd guys have all three major
headaches (performance, quilt, importer failures) firmly in their sights, so I
know they will get fixed.

[Barry Warsaw (barry)]

On Jul 13, 2011, at 10:31 PM, Scott Kitterman wrote:

>I didn't say move it to an appendix. I said don't call it an Ubuntu Packaging
>Guide if it's a UDD Packaging Guide.

Except it's not a UDD Packaging Guide. It appears that way because the other
sections need volunteers to help flesh out.

[Jonathan Riddell (jr)]

The decision to make the guide focus on UDD (as in Daniel's comment) makes sense from the view that it should focus on one workflow instead of trying to cover all workflows, UDD is available today and can be accepted by all teams even if it's not their main workflow. However it does need to be honest that UDD isn't used directly by most teams yet and it has problems which can make it slow and fiddly to work with. It should include or point to information on traditional packaging methods. If not the title then a subtitle should be clear what it's focus is.