[Debian-med-packaging] Status of igraph packaging for Debian

[Andreas Tille]

Hi Tamás,

On Mon, Aug 11, 2014 at 12:11:54AM +0200, Tamás Nepusz wrote:
> Hello Andreas,
> 
> > When downloading the source tarball of version 0.7.1 I realised that it
> > included some kind of competing Debian packaging done by Tamas Nepusz.
> I wonder whether the tarball you downloaded was actually the released version; downloading it from the following URL right now gives me a tarball that does not contain a "debian/" subdirectory:
> 
> http://igraph.org/nightly/get/c/igraph-0.7.1.tar.gz
> (MD5 sum: 4f6e7c16b45fce8ed423516a9786e4e8)

I admit I did not downloaded from this location but rather from the
Github releases at:

  https://github.com/igraph/igraph/releases

If you confirm that these are different from
http://igraph.org/nightly/get/c/ (which I'd consider a bit confusing)
we could adjust our watch file to this location.

> However, it's true that our source tree contains a "debian/" subdirectory. It's been like that for a long while now, but we only used it to build Debian packages from nightly snapshots "on demand", mostly for private use or as a favour to collaborators who wanted to use some features from the development version. That's why the changelog probably does not make much sense -- we simply did not bother to update it because these nightly snapshots were usually meant for private use or were distributed to our collaborators only. (Also, I think we also used it to build packages for Ubuntu Linux on Launchpad). Also, a while ago I made a failed attempt to reconcile our "debian/" subdirectory with the official Debian packaging but I had given it up due to lack of time.
> 
> So, the bottom line is that I'm pretty certain that the released tarball does not contain a "debian/" subdirectory, and I have no intention to maintain a "competing" packaging at all. I was wondering what the best course of action should be to avoid confusion in the future. Would it help if I simply remove the debian/ subdirectory from the repo and move it somewhere else (into another repository on Github) so I can still use it for private purposes if needed? Also, is there anything we could do to help with bringing igraph in Debian up-to-date with the latest version?

As long as the debian/ dir does not show up in the release tarballs this
is no real problem.  If I were you I would try tp approach that the
release tarballs on Github are byte (md5sum) identical with the download
area on your homepage.

Regarding to update igraph in Debian it would be really welcome if you
would maintain the official debian/ dir at svn.debian.org which is
currently maintained by the Debian Med team.  Since you are using Github
I assume you might prefer Git over SVN and if you are willing tp join
our team that cares for igraph I could easily move this to
git.debian.org.  The procedure how we are working together is described
in the Debian Med team policy[1].  Our team is famous to guide
newcommers kindly into the details - since you have obviously some
packaging skills I expect that this will be a quite smooth process.  It
boils down to

   1. Register at http://alioth.debian.org
   2. Request membership in Debian Med team (this grants you commit
      permissions to SVN or Git)
   3. Tell me whether you prefer Git over SVN and I'll move the
      packaging meanwhile
   4. Adapt the packaging to latest state (with our help if needed)
   5. Ask a Debian Developer (on our list several are lurking) to
      upload your package (in Debian Jargon this is called "sponsering")

This will update igraph in Debian and thus also Ubuntu and its
derivatives.  BTW, my final target would have been the R igraph package
which we could tackle with your help as well.
 
> All the best and sorry about the confusion this may have caused,

No problem since this is sorted out now. :-)

Kind regards

         Andreas.

[1] http://debian-med.alioth.debian.org/docs/policy.html

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