Debian Weekly News - email

From: "Marcelo E. Magallon" <magallo@debian.org>
Date: Wed, 2 Aug 2000 10:28:22 +0200
To: debian-devel-announce@lists.debian.org
Subject: WNPP now on the BTS

Hi,

 Sometime ago Sean Perry, aka Shaleh, proposed[0] to move the current
 WNPP system over to the BTS.  The proposal was well received, and
 among the people contributing to that discussion, Lars Wirzenius
 wrote a second, more formal, proposal[1] defining how things would
 work under this new system.  The required infrastructure on the BTS
 side was installed in place a couple of week ago and it seemed that
 the last missing bit was to move the old database over to the BTS.
 Last Monday I did that, but alas, not in the best of ways...

 Basically I took the WNPP database[2] and extracted as much
 information as possible from there, formatted it in a way that would
 be fit for submission to the BTS and sent it away.  The
 oh-not-so-happy bit about this is that I had to forge the 'From'
 header in order for the BTS to record the correct person as the
 'submitter' of the 'bugs', that is, if Joe R. Hacker <jrh@foo.bar>
 submitted a request to the WNPP system, the mail was sent in such a
 way that the BTS would record that address as the submitter of the
 information.  The intention is clear, I hope, namely, if a person
 requests a piece of software to be packaged for Debian, once the new
 package is installed on the archive the bug would be closed and this
 person would get notified.  Same goes for all the other kinds of
 requests.

 That said, my apologies for the troubles caused.

 Now, let's move on.

 Following Lars' proposal, the format of the submissions should be
 something like this:

     To: submit@bugs.debian.org
     Subject: {TAG}: {package name} -- {short package description}

     Package: wnpp
     Severity: {see below}

     {The usual blurb that accompanies this announcements, a package
     description and other information would be useful}

 The tags to be used and corresponding severities would be:

     O    important  The package has been Orphaned.  It needs a new
                     maintainer as soon as possible.  If the package
                     as a Priority of standard, required or essential,
                     the severity should be set to grave.

     ITO  important  The current maintainer of the package has stated
                     his Intention To Orphan it.  The package is being
                     maintained, but perhaps not in the best possible
                     way due to lack of time, resources or something
                     similar.  The package needs a new maintainer.

     ITP  normal     Someone Intents To Package this.  Please submit a
                     package description along with copyright and URL
                     in such a report.

     RFP  wishlist   This is a Request For Package.  Someone has found
                     an interesting piece of software and would like
                     someone else to package it for Debian and upload
                     it to the archives.  Please submit a package
                     description along with copyright and URL in such
                     a report.

     WTO  wishlist   The current maintainer Wishes To Orphan the
                     package.  He's currently maintaining the package,
                     but wishes someone else would do that.  This is
                     different from ITO in the sense that if noone
                     steps up and adopts this package, the world as we
                     know it won't come to an end.

     W    wishlist   The package has been withdrawn and can be found
                     in project/orphaned.  Note Orphaned packages are
                     still installed in the main archive.

 The procedures for closing this bugs are as follow:

     O    adopt the package, upload to the main archive and close this
          bug once the package has been installed.  If you are going
          to do this, retitle the bug with 'ITA:' + the old title.
          This is necessary in order for other people to know the
          package is being adopted.

     ITO  adopt the package, upload to the main archive and close this
          bug once the package has been installed.  If you are going
          to do this, retitle the bug with 'ITA:' + the old title.
          This is necessary in order for other people to know the
          package is being adopted.

          If you as the package maintainer change your mind, and this
          turns into a WTO or O, please retitle and reclassify as
          necessary.

          If you withdraw your ITO, close the bug.

     ITP  package the software, upload to the main archive and close
          this bug once the package has been installed.

          If you change your mind, and no longer want to package this,
          either close the bug or retitle and reclassify it as RFP, as
          you see fit.

     RFP  package the software, upload to the main archive and close
          this bug once the package has been installed.  If you are
          going to do this, retitle the bug with 'ITP' and set its
          severity to 'normal'.

     WTO  adopt the package, upload to the main archive and close this
          bug once the package has been installed.  If you are going
          to do this, retitle the bug with 'ITA:' + the old title.
          This is necessary in order for other people to know the
          package is being adopted.

          If you as the package maintainer change your mind, and this
          turns into an ITO or O, please retitle and reclassify as
          necessary.

          If you withdraw your WTO, close the bug.

     W    adopt the package, upload to the main archive and close this
          bug once the package has been installed.  If you are going
          to do this, retitle the bug with 'ITA:' + the old title.
          This is necessary in order for other people to know the
          package is being adopted.

 Of course, the easiest way of closing bugs is to include the
 appropriate entry on the changelog and append '(Closes: bug#nnnnn)' to
 it.  In this way, the bug will be closed at the time the new package
 gets installed into the archive.

 The current list of bugs against wnpp is found under:

     https://bugs.debian.org/wnpp

 Sorry about the delay in sending this mail and again, my apologies to
 the people who got spammed as an effect of the 300+ submissions to
 the BTS.

 Finally, I would urge the people who have filed ITP's, ITA's, RFP's
 et al, to update the information on the BTS.  This also goes for
 people who have adopted packages.  The information was taken out of
 the WNPP and it was out of sync with the real situation in the
 archive.

 Thanks to all the people who made this possible.


                              Marcelo

 [0] https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0005/msg01968.html
 [1] https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0006/msg02006.html
 [2] https://www.debian.org/doc/prospective-packages

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This issue of Debian Weekly News was edited by Joey Hess.