Bug#512360: RFH: openldap -- OpenLDAP server, libraries, and utilities

[Ryan Tandy]

On Thu, Sep 09, 2021 at 10:34:12AM +0200, David Coutadeur wrote:
>Hello Ryan,

Hello!

>My name is David Coutadeur and I am working for Worteks. I am also 
>part of the ltb-project team (https://ltb-project.org/ 
><https://ltb-project.org/>)
>
>I, and the LTB team, would be glad to help contributing OpenLDAP 
>packages for Debian.

Thank you for getting in touch! I definitely know your name, and a few 
of the things you've worked on. :)

>There are two ways I suppose we could contribute:
>
>  - using our LTB package in debian?

Hmm. I don't know this package in a lot of detail, but (assuming I 
understood the suggestion correctly) at a glance it doesn't look 
suitable for importing directly into Debian in its current form; for 
example it doesn't seem to have the package split needed for the shared 
library (libldap/libldap-dev/etc), and other Policy things like that.

I tend to think the value propositions of LTB (fresh packages staying 
close to upstream's intent) and the Debian package (integrated package 
that makes sense as part of the overall Debian system) are different 
enough that there is room for both.

>  - help making the current debian packages evolve?

Any assistance with improving the current package would be very welcome! 
I posted last year in #512360 some things I think should be done, those 
are pretty much all still valid since I haven't been very active this 
year.

Sergio from Canonical was driving the transition to 2.5 in Ubuntu and 
provided a lot of help with that. For Debian, 2.5 is now in 
experimental, but I think I'm waiting for 2.6 before moving it to 
unstable, since it's close to release. I could definitely use help with 
rebuilding and autopkgtesting the reverse-depends of libldap, and fixing 
any failures. (Sergio has already opened bugs or merge requests for some 
of them.) There is minimal support for slapd upgrades right now 
(basically making the user fix everything by hand), automating some of 
the easier config migrations would be valuable too.

Beyond that, jumping in on any open bug against the openldap packages 
(https://bugs.debian.org/src:openldap) and providing assistance or 
packages to move them forward would be great. (BDB/HDB related ones can 
be ignored; I plan to bulk-close all of those in the near future.)

Thank you!

Ryan