blog/data/2024-04-14-debian-vcs-qa.txt

   1 Title: Time to move orphaned Debian packages to git
   2 Tags: english, debian
   3 Date: 2024-04-14 09:30
   4
   5 <p>There are several packages in Debian without a associated git
   6 repository with the packaging history.  This is unfortunate and it
   7 would be nice if more of these would do so.  Quote a lot of these are
   8 without a maintainer, ie listed as maintained by the
   9 '<a href="https://qa.debian.org/developer.php?email=packages%40qa.debian.org">Debian
  10 QA Group</a>' place holder.  In fact, 438 packages have this property
  11 according to UDD (<tt>SELECT source FROM sources WHERE release = 'sid'
  12 AND (vcs_url ilike '%anonscm.debian.org%' OR vcs_browser ilike
  13 '%anonscm.debian.org%' or vcs_url IS NULL OR vcs_browser IS NULL) AND
  14 maintainer ilike '%packages@qa.debian.org%';</tt>).  Such packages can
  15 be updated without much coordination by any Debian developer, as they
  16 are considered orphaned.</p>
  17
  18 <p>To try to improve the situation and reduce the number of packages
  19 without associated git repository, I started a few days ago to search
  20 out candiates and provide them with a git repository under the
  21 'debian' collaborative Salsa project.  I started with the packages
  22 pointing to obsolete Alioth git repositories, and am now working my
  23 way across the ones completely without git references.  In addition to
  24 updating the Vcs-* debian/control fields, I try to update
  25 Standards-Version, debhelper compat level, simplify d/rules, switch to
  26 Rules-Requires-Root: no and fix lintian issues reported.  I only
  27 implement those that are trivial to fix, to avoid spending too much
  28 time on each orphaned package.  So far my experience is that it take
  29 aproximately 20 minutes to convert a package without any git
  30 references, and a lot more for packages with existing git repositories
  31 incompatible with git-buildpackages.</p>
  32
  33 <p>So far I have converted 10 packages, and I will keep going until I
  34 run out of steam.  As should be clear from the numbers, there is
  35 enough packages remaining for more people to do the same without
  36 stepping on each others toes.  I find it useful to start by searching
  37 for a git repo already on salsa, as I find that some times a git repo
  38 has already been created, but no new version is uploaded to Debian
  39 yet.  In those cases I start with the existing git repository.  I
  40 convert to the git-buildpackage+pristine-tar workflow, and ensure a
  41 debian/gbp.conf file with "pristine-tar=True" is added early, to avoid
  42 uploading a orig.tar.gz with the wrong checksum by mistake.  Did that
  43 three times in the begin before I remembered my mistake.</p>
  44
  45 <p>So, if you are a Debian Developer and got some spare time, perhaps
  46 considering migrating some orphaned packages to git?</p>
  47
  48 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
  49 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
  50 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>