[Pkg-fonts-devel] fontforge packaging in git: caveats, instructions, good news, and next steps

[Daniel Kahn Gillmor]

Hi debian font folks--

i've just updated our fontforge packaging to use git, derived from
upstream's git.  I'm prepared to try to upload a package for it to
unstable, if folks are comfortable with it.  Please let me know!

Caveats:

 * upstream repo contains files that aren't (and have never been) in a
   released version.  So i'm building off of an "upstream-cleaned"
   branch, generated by removing a standard list of files from the true
   upstream link.  It's pretty janky, but the process for the future is
   something like the following:

    git checkout upstream
    git remote update
    git merge upstream/master
    git checkout -b cleaning.tmp
    git rm Readme.VMS aclocal.m4 admintools cidmap cidmapsrc config.guess config.sub fonttools gtkui htdocs ltmain.sh mac-Resources test
    git commit -m 'remove unpackaged upstream files'
    git tag fontforge/0.0.$(date +%Y%m%d)+git
    git checkout upstream-cleaned
    git merge fontforge/0.0.$(date +%Y%m%d)+git
    git branch -d cleaning.tmp

   Then, if that all looks reasonably clean, check out master, merge it
   with upstream-cleaned, update debian/changelog, and git-buildpackage

 * history not universally imported -- there were a bunch of fiddly bits
   due to upstream's released tarballs not quite jibing with what's in
   the repository, and our own imprecise package release history.  I've
   tried to tag some recent releases, but i haven't done a really tight
   repository sync up.

 * internal timestamp (fontforge --version, Help|About, etc) not
   updated, and no ./VERSION file exists in the repo (it exists in older
   release tarballs, though).  Maybe this was normally done by upstream
   at release time?  Maybe we don't need it or care?

Instructions to get started locally:

   git clone git://git.debian.org/pkg-fonts/fontforge.git
   cd fontforge
   git-buildpackage -uc -us

 If you have commit rights to pkg-fonts, you can set yourself up for
 pushing with:

  git config remote.origin.pushurl ssh://git.debian.org/git/pkg-fonts/fontforge


Good news:

 * the package appears to build fine under pbuilder

 * it's prepared for libpng transition (closing #662330) -- additional
   patches to package configuration forwarded upstream

Possible Next Steps in no particular order (any takers?):

 * i'm not sure which of our outstanding crash bugs should be considered
   fixed by this version; Can someone review and report back?

 * Upload to unstable or experimental?

 * Review of patchsets we're carrying -- can some of them be pushed
   upstream to reduce our divergence?

 * Streamline creation of packaging from new "upstream tarball", or at
   least script the horrendous sequence at the top of this e-mail with
   some reasonable safety precautions.

Any and all feedback welcome!

   --dkg


PS as you can see above, i've reused the old pkg-fonts fontforge git
repo for this purpose, clearing out the old data that was there.  If you
need that old data for whatever reason, i've got it backed up, and will
do my best to keep it for 6 months.  If no one claims it by then, i may
just dispose of it.
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