Re: Offer to maintain GNU's Debbugs instance (and modernize it)

[Maxim Cournoyer]

Hi Felix,

Felix Lechner <felix.lechner@lease-up.com> writes:

> Hi Noam,
>
> If there is a consensus that GNU's Debbugs instance is allowed to
> diverge from Debian's, I would be happy to spend some time with it.
>
> I'd like to separate the GNU instance from the upstream project at
> Debian. My goal is to gradually reimplement Debbugs for the GNU project
> in GNU Guile. It would likely be a dynamic web application. Is that an
> acceptable path forward for everyone?
>
> My main motivation is that the Guix project, a sub-project of GNU,
> depends on GNU Debbugs to a great extent. Substantial efforts were
> already made to augment it, but they remain incomplete and
> under-appreciated. [1]

That sounds like an exciting (and ambitious!) project.  My take on it
would have been more conservative: try to at least have a rebased
version of the GNU Debbugs instance on top of the upstream Debbugs one,
to benefit of its bug fixes and new features (?), before attempting to
rewrite it into something else.

Noam had a good start at it here:
<https://gitlab.com/npostavs/debbugs/-/commits/rebase-to-upstream>, that
may be useful as a base.

If we had GNU Debbugs source code in git on Savannah, with the extra
customization as extra patches on top of upstream, I think we could then
package it in Guix, make a service for it, and *then*, be well equipped
to work on rewriting it, if there's value and/or motivation in doing so
(like you seem to have!)

Is this an effort you'd be interested sharing (the preconditions for a
rewrite I've laid out above, as I see it?)  I could lend a hand, as it's
something I've been meaning to do for a while.

-- 
Thanks,
Maxim