[Debichem-devel] Branching off for wheezy

Michael Banck mbanck at debian.org
Sun Apr 28 22:59:23 UTC 2013


Hi,

Wheezy is around the corner, and this time I would like to make a bigger
effort in supporting it. There are two ways I guess:

1. Fix bugs in the stable wheezy package via a stable point release

2. Backport new versions or revisions

Regarding 1., I think it makes sense to branch off the Debichem
subversion for a package (either the tip, or the last revision regarding
wheezy if new development has happened already). So I suggest we create
svn+ssh://svn.debian.org/svn/debichem/wheezy and put bug fixes there.

My current plan is to extract bug fixes from upstream's version control
or their (point) releases.  Unfortunately, few of our upstreams (at
least the ones I am looking at) is maintaining bugfix-only branches, so
some amount of backporting and manual inspection is necessary.  For
example, today I looked at the changes in Quantum ESPRESSO versions
5.0.1 and 5.0.2.  Fortunately, they keep at least some release notes
updated which seperate bug fixes and features, but it was still quite
tedious.

My hope is that those kind of bug fixes will be allowed by the stable
Release Managers for a future wheezy point release.

Regarding 2., I think we should start making backports (either of new
major releases, or of important other changes, which are not eligable
for a stable point release).  However, I think we probably do not need
to keep track of those in subversion, do others disagree?

Of course, everybody should judge for themselves whether they want to
support some packages in stable, I am happy to help review or sponsor
stuff in case.


Michael



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