[Debian-ha-maintainers] shared Git repository layout

[Ferenc Wagner]

Richard B Winters <rik at mmogp.com> writes:

> I've updated/migrated your improvements to the debian branch after
> reviewing them. Thanks again for having taken the time -> I've noted
> each of your changes, and recall why you suggested them.

Hi Richard,

Looking at http://anonscm.debian.org/cgit/debian-ha/libqb.git/, looks
like we still aren't quite on the same page regarding repository layout.
Before I go into the details: why did you prefix your commit messages
with ####s?  And I don't think gbp patch-queue branches should usually
be published at all, as they are rebased frequently.

> I added your changelog notes to my changelog

The usual format for multi-author changelog entries is:

package (version) distribution; urgency

  [ author1 name ]
  * change 1
  * change 2

  [ author2 name ]
  * change 3
  * change 4

 -- maintainer name <email address>[two spaces]  date

We can also think about using git-dch, but I lack experience with it.

> I'm going to merge the updated debian branch into master, and apply each
> patch in the series one at a time and then offer the fixes upstream
> (where applicable); that is, unless you've already done so?

I haven't yet.  And here is one reason to package in the forked upstream
repo: we could just create a branch (like the patch-queue branch without
the non-git-version.patch starting at current master) and create an
upstream pull request for that.

So, to achieve this (now going into DEP-14), we have to start by cloning
(forking) the upstream repo with its full history.  For easy reference
and cherry-picking, leave the master branch tracking upstream
development, do not merge Debian changes into it.  We want to base our
packages on upstream tarball releases, though, so we need an upstream
branch and import the releases there.  We also want to be able to
regenerate the upstream tarballs from our repository alone, thus we need
a pristine-tar branch as well.  The packaging work should be done on the
debian/sid branch (not simply debian, to gain uniformity when we'll
later have to do backports, stable updates or experimental uploads).
Thus the debian directory will only be present in the debian/* branches.
Tools like git-buildpackage can be configured for this convention.

To be honest, I've got very limited experience with this layout, but I
can see how this would be better than the more conventional layouts I've
got more experience with.  That's why I recommend the above.  Could you
please enlist me (wferi-guest) into the Debian-HA Alioth project?
I'm willing to start up the libqb repository if you prefer.  I'll also
reshape (or replace) the corosync packaging repository into this form.
Also, the debian-ha/debian-ha unused repository should be removed, I
guess.
-- 
Regards,
Feri.