[request-tracker-maintainers] RT 3.8 coming soon. How can BPS help you guys out?

[Ivan Kohler]

On Tue, Jun 24, 2008 at 09:13:29PM +0300, Niko Tyni wrote:
> On Fri, Jun 20, 2008 at 06:12:52PM -0400, Jesse Vincent wrote:
> > Hey folks. We're about 2 weeks from releasing RT 3.8.0, which _I_  
> > think is a heck of a lot nicer than RT 3.6.6. Is there anything we at  
> > BPS can do to help get RT 3.8 into Lenny or is it too late for that?
> 
> Hi Jesse,
> 
> many thanks for the offer, much appreciated. Unfortunately, I think the
> chances of getting 3.8 into Lenny are low.
> 
> The release schedule currently says a full freeze will start in the
> mid of July. As each major RT version is packaged separately to allow
> co-installation, 3.8.0 will be considered a new package, and those aren't
> accepted during a freeze.
> 
> New packages need several weeks anyway to get to a state where they are
> considered for a release (at least ~1 week in the 'NEW' queue for manual
> license/copyright checks, + 10 days in the 'unstable' distribution so
> the worst bugs are found out).
> 
> There hasn't been a release update lately so I don't know how realistic
> the schedule is looking. It's possible that the freeze will be delayed,
> but we can't really count on that.
> 
> Our manpower situation is also quite bad. I'm currently pretty much
> the only one active on the Debian RT team, and my request for help
> (http://bugs.debian.org/469353, Cc'd) hasn't caught any attention so far.
> As maintaining the perl package is currently my first priority in Debian,
> I just don't have the time, and I also intend to spend most of July on
> a family vacation...
> 
> So, unless you are prepared to go the whole way and get someone (not me,
> I've got the vacation) to put together a policy-compliant Debian package
> very soon and preferably commit to maintaining it,

Hi Jesse,

If BPS was considering throwing some person-power at the problem, even 
if the package doesn't make it in time for official lenny, it could be 
made available as a lenny add-on from backports.org.  For folks wanting 
the latest RT on Debian, this would be a big advantage over compiling 
from source or upgrading to testing/unstable.  Especially since 
backports.org is closer and closer to being an "official" Debian 
service, it would be almost as good as being in lenny proper.  Maybe 
better, because folks wouldn't be stuck at 3.8.0 for two years.  :)  

I also have a shortage of time to take this on myself, but I can 
certainly commit to helping where I can, answer any questions about 
packaging, etc.  I can sponsor uploads if Niko is unavailable.

-- 
Ivan Kohler
President & Head Geek, Freeside Internet Services, Inc.  http://freeside.biz/
Debian GNU/Linux developer  |  CPAN author  |  cat person  |  ski addict