[Pkg-owncloud-maintainers] Separate packages for apps

[David Prévot]

Hi,

We introduced the owncloud-apps package partly in order to be able to
add new apps without going through the NEW process every time (it was
introduced quite late during the release cycle, and made it into testing
only two weeks before the freeze).

Packaging different apps in the same package tree is quite inconvenient:
- no actual upstream tarball to rely on (well, we could have used the
  multiple source tarball feature of format 3.0);
- no way to use the real version string (we could have built multiple
  binary packages, but that would force to pass the NEW queue for every
  new app);
- it ships apps with very different purposes that do not target
  especially the same userbase;
- tracking several repositories into one package is not really friendly…

ownCloud 8 ships a lot less apps than ownCloud 7, so owncloud-apps will
grow a lot to keep its initial purpose (i.e., offer a package one may
rely on to keep the features that were once provided via a previous
owncloud package):
- bookmarks
- calendar
- contacts
- documents
- search_lucene

Since there is a lot of time left before the Stretch freeze, I’d like to
revisit the apps packaging, and consider introducing at least eight new
separate packages for a start (the three currently provided by
owncloud-apps, and the five that disappeared between ownCloud 7 and
ownCloud 8.

The owncloud-apps package can stay as a metapackage depending on all or
parts of the new package, and may be reused to introduce new apps
“quickly” if we really need it to.

It may help people to join the team (since maintaining an app may be
less scary than the big core), but increase a bit the workload (more
individual packages), so any advice, remark, alternative proposal would
be welcome.

Since there are only a few package in the owncloud- name space (and I
don’t foresee much clashing), I suppose using owncloud-$app (e.g.,
owncloud-contacts) as a name would be enough for these packages
(owncloud-app-$app, e.g., owncloud-app-contacts could be an
alternative), please do object if you disagree.

As I don’t intend to work on ownCloud 8 in the near future (saving
myself for ownCloud 9 or ownCloud 10 while tracking ownCloud 7 and
backport security fixes to Jessie), now may be a good time to start
introducing those packages.

I thus intend to start by introducing one or two apps (e.g., contacts
and documents) and see where this is going, then I may file the other
RFPs (if nobody beats me to it) in the hope interested people would join
and help packaging those new apps.

Regards

David

P.-S.: testing those apps without an owncloud 8 package will be pretty
painful, so I may prepare an ugly owncloud package in pre-alpha state
just for that, and can share it (e.g., via people.d.o) if other people
want to test those apps…
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