Re: Cutting a release?

[Yavor Doganov]

В Wed, 02 Jan 2019 16:48:51 +0000, Ivan Vučica написа:

> I realized I'm not sure what transition means. Out of curiosity, is it
> the transition from e.g.  libgnustep-gui0.26 to libgnustep-gui0.27?

Yes, that's a library transition.  The Debian Release team "acks" a
transition when the new version of the library is built on all release
architectures and the maintainer confirms that all reverse
dependencies build successfully (or failing that, bugs are filed with
patches).  They also verify that the transition is not entangled with
some other transition and pick the right moment for it.  When the new
version of the library is uploaded to unstable and built everywhere,
the Release team schedules binNMUs (automatic rebuilds) of all reverse
dependencies, in the right order.  Packages which fail to build are
fixed by sourceful uploads by the maintainer or non-maintainer uploads
by the library maintainer if the rdep maintainer does not act in time.

So planning a GNUstep transition involves us rebuilding all reverse
dependencies in a chroot, which takes ~2 days on my hardware (slightly
less if only -gui is involved).

> That is, is the problem creation of a new binary package?

Yes, the introduction of a new binary package triggers a pass through
the NEW queue (dropping a package does not).  This is done mostly
because manual action is required to place the package in the
appropriate section, but ftpmasters also check copyright/licensing
issues and other possible violations.

> I think I have a few DDs I might be able to bother for sponsorship
> if we agree on a release.

In my experience, most DDs refuse to review and upload GNUstep
software because they don't know the language (and the build system,
the bizarre layout, etc.).  My current sponsor usually uploads with
delays of 3-4 days, but I can ask on -mentors for a quick upload
because of the deadline.

> I suppose ftpmasters will be a hard block at that point.

Yes, unfortunately.  I guess I can ask them for fasttracking but
there's no guarantee that they'll do it in time.  The NEW queue [1] is
crowded at the moment and there are plenty of transitions [2] going
on.  I guess everyone is in a hurry to get his own package(s) in.

[1] https://ftp-master.debian.org/new.html
[2] https://release.debian.org/transitions/index.html

> *sigh* I love bureaucracy.

Yep, there's more bureaucracy in Debian than anywhere else.  I don't
like it either, it is infuriating at times.

> It's really hard for a non-DD to be aware of these deadlines. It's even
> more fun to think about all the other distributions and OSes that I'm
> not even trying to track.

You shouldn't even try to learn all these details; it should be our
(distro maintainers) obligation to keep you posted.  Which I
ultimately failed to do...