Bug#730868: freeciv: New upstream version 2.4.1 available

[Vincent Cheng]

On Sun, Jan 26, 2014 at 11:14 AM, Marko Lindqvist <cazfi74 at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 26 January 2014 17:35, Jacob Nevins
> <jacobn+debian at chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
>> Markus Koschany writes:
>>> the current human maintainers of freeciv are quite inactive/busy these
>>> days. You could always try to update the package yourself and ask
>>> someone on debian-devel-games at lists.debian.org for sponsoring your
>>> package. This might often be the quickest way to get an urgent fix into
>>> Debian/Ubuntu.
>>
>> You're probably right that it's the quickest way, but so far I've been
>> successfully resisting the temptation to get involved in Debian
>> packaging -- I already have too many commitments as upstream...
>
>  So are we all, though the fact that most freeciv devs seem to be
> Debian or derivative users should make packaging to Debian a bit
> easier - most incompatibility problems and the like get caught in
> upstream already. I'm using Debian testing as primary Freeciv
> development OS.
>
>>> As soon as Alioth and the git repositories are back online, I can try to
>>> package 2.4.1. I hope there aren't too many changes.
>>
>> Since 2.4.0 is already packaged, I *think* 2.4.1 should be a
>> straightforward rebuild.
>
>  I think so too, as long as one has only updating to the new upstream
> version as goal for new Debian package version - as jtn said that
> alone would be big improvement, fix many bugs.
>
>> I don't see anything scary-looking at
>> <http://www.freeciv.org/wiki/NEWS-2.4.1#Build.2Fportability>
>> nor any significant additions to doc/README.packaging.
>>
>>> I can't promise that the new release will be uploaded in time before
>>> the 6th of February. That depends on whether I can find a sponsor for
>>> freeciv.
>>
>> Thanks for considering it.
>
>  After Ubunut LTS next important distributions related date for me is
> freeze of Debian itself November. How much earlier we should have
> upstream release (bugfix one) out for it to get included with high
> probability?

For Debian, the release team abides by the set of freeze policies very
closely (you can find them at [1]; note that they become more and more
restrictive as the freeze period lengthens, up to the point where only
uploads with minimal patches targeting RC bugs are accepted), so you
should aim to get anything you want in the next stable Debian release
into the archive by November. As for Ubuntu, while I'm not as familiar
with its release processes as I am with Debian, I'll note here that
Debian Import Freeze is only the date at which _automatic_ imports of
packages from Debian stops; getting packages into Ubuntu past DIF is
doable (before Feature Freeze, at least), and my experience with
Ubuntu's process so far suggests to me that they are somewhat more
lenient than Debian is at accepting leaf packages prior to deadlines.

Cheers,
Vincent

[1] https://release.debian.org/jessie/freeze_policy.html