[Pkg-owncloud-maintainers] ownCloud client packages are pretty outdated

[Fabian Müller]

Hi Pierre-Elliot,

I had not received MJ's mail before, thank you for forwarding it to me. 
I should have subscribed to the list first, of course.
> I'd be happy to package a newer version but indeed it seems that you
> moved out your repo/release from
> https://download.owncloud.com/desktop/stable/, where 2.6.3 is the latest
> advertised version. As it's this page where our tracker feeds, and as I
> have litterally a ton of other commitments, the version move was totally
> missed.
> 
> Where can I find proper tarballs to build? The current download system
> points to "distribution packages" or "appimage", which doesn't fit at
> all.

I was hoping it was just some kind of minor issue that is easy to 
resolve and just needs a bit of communication between upstream and 
downstream.

The location has indeed changed in the past, probably around 2020. 
Nowadays, there are theme-specific directories containing the releases. 
The ones relevant for Debian are the ownCloud theme ones. They are 
served from https://download.owncloud.com/desktop/ownCloud/stable/, with 
https://download.owncloud.com/desktop/ownCloud/stable/latest/ always 
pointing to the latest release. You can find the official source 
tarballs in 
https://download.owncloud.com/desktop/ownCloud/stable/latest/source/, 
which include everything required to build binaries for all platforms.

The pattern just needs a small modification, then it should work again.

Admittedly, navigating the download page can be challenging. I'll 
suggest to add a README in the server's root directory to guide future 
visitors.

As far as I can see, unstable should contain packages for all the 
dependencies, so that should also not be an issue. Our upcoming 3.0 
release has the same requirements as 2.10.

> While we're at it, you indeed changed the way documentation is built
> back in 2020. It's done in a way that made impossible for it to be built
> in Debian, which is quite a bummer.
I assume you refer to the merger of the client and server docs while 
transforming to the Antora docs generator.

Maybe you can elaborate on what kind of format you'd need and/or prefer? 
I'll happily discuss ideas with the team. We already thought about 
providing specialized tarballs for distro packaging purposes. We could 
for instance just add the client docs source (or maybe compiled HTML) to 
them.

We're interested in making your life a little bit easier, so please let 
us know how we can help sort this out. We know distros like Debian have 
special requirements and rules, and you're the ones who know them best.

 >> Other than that, patches to fix any of the bugs shown at
 >> https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?src=owncloud-client
 >> - or telling us which ones you think are fixed in the current 
version >> - would probably help speed up packaging and inclusion of a newer
 >> version.

I had a quick look at the owncloud-client-bugs. Most of them are 
reported for very old versions of the client, which has seen years of 
development and improvements since. They'd require re-testing of the 
users. Many of them have not even seen a reply from the users when 
they're asked to try a new version. I think it's reasonable to assume 
they've been fixed upstream. If not, we'd of course like to debug and 
fix them upstream.

Best regards
Fabian


-- 
Store. Share. Work.
https://owncloud.com

Fabian Müller
Engineering - Team Desktop & Mobile

email: fmueller at owncloud.org

ownCloud GmbH
Rathsbergstrasse 17
90411 Nuremberg, Germany

Managing Directors: Tobias Gerlinger, Holger Dyroff
Court of Registry: Amtsgericht Nuremberg
Commercial Register No.: 28050
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