[tryton-debian] Any volunteer to update GNUHealth packages

[Andreas Tille]

Hi Mathias,

sorry for not answering this issue earlier.

On Mon, Feb 09, 2015 at 11:37:09AM +0100, Mathias Behrle wrote:
> * Andreas Tille: " Any volunteer to update GNUHealth packages" (Mon, 9 Feb 2015
>   08:40:47 +0100):
> 
> > GNUHealth 2.8.1 was released which is using tryton 3.4.0.  We lost the
> > official GNUHealth package recently due to incompatibilities with
> > tryton.  Any volunteer to prepare a package for exoerimental is more
> > than welcome.
> 
> Could you please point out, what's your motivation to call for this work again
> in this way

Just for clarification:  I did not intended to specify any way how the
GNUHealth packages are created.  My intention was that some work that
was done previously should not be thrown away.  Any enhancement that
might serve our users properly is welcome.
 
> - against the pronounced will of the gnuhealth maintainers (I talked once
>   again to the gnuhealth maintainers at this years Tryton Unconference in
>   Leipzig, which are not in favor of having Debian packages but prefer a
>   distribution agnostic way of installation)

Generally speaking I'm careful about "the pronounced will" of a certain
representative of a project that is given orally on a conference.  I
personally met another member of the project at 2011 at Med at Tel who was
very keen on packages.  It might depend from the time (my information is
not as current as yours) and the representative (may be the person I
have met is not a technican coming from the Tryton programmers).

> - according to [0][1] the moderate interest in the subject

I'm not sure that these links are telling something about the moderate
interest but I agree that for specific software like software in
medicine the interest measured in popcon users is low.  I personally
do see some sense in delivering packages anyway and I have good reasons
for this but I would like to discuss this in a more generic thread like
this GNUHealth related one.

> - still with the problematic concept of doing *one* package

As I said above:  I do not insist on this concept.  I strongly believe
in the Do-O-cracy principle of Debian where the doer decides how things
will be done.

> - still with the unsolved problem to have gnuhealth modules compatible with
>   the rest of the Tryton suite inside Debian with a justifiable amount of
>   effort to do for the maintainer as well as for the release and security team
> 
> I am volunteering to do the gnuhealth packages under the following prerequistes:
> - you give me a number of people interested in Debian gnuhealth packages apart
>   from you and Emilien ;) (please take this from the humorous side...)

I would need to check whether the recipients of the mail to the Debian
Med list back in 2011[3] remains and might qualify as "number of people
interested"

> - gnuhealth packages made by me will be in the well-proven generic way of the
>   current Tryton modules

I have no technical background of Tryton and thus I will simply trust
the people who are dealing with this.

> - gnuhealth packaging (VCS) will be like for all Tryton modules on alioth

+1

> - gnuhealth packages will be made available outside of Debian on
>   debian.tryton.org (the only way to make them currently available in a clean
>   and seasoned way to the users with having the relative gnuhealth suite always
>   being dedicated to the correct Tryton series and thus being maintainable
>   without headaches all the time)

While I'm not really excited about this I admit that this is better than
having no packages at all but outdated packaging code hanging around (as
it is currently the case).
 
> It would be very helpful to get those answers instead of just pushing back
> always the same idea, that has proven to not being adequate or even not to work.

My intention was not to push back anything but find a sensible solution
for potential users of GNUHealth on a Debian system.  From a Debian
point of view through the eyes of a non-Trytonista like me Emiliens
approach looked not bad and seemed to work for a certain period of time.
Emilian has declared in [0] that he does not intend to work on this any
more and has given reasons for this.  He also said in this thread[4]
that we would only continue working on this if some consensus can be
reached which does not seem to be the case.  I can perfectly understand
this since for a volunteer its fun to work on technical things but it is
not funny to discus conflicting opinions over and over (I obtain from
your mail that your agree at least in this point perfectly with Emilien
;-)).

In short: If you think you found a proper way to create GNUHealth
packages on debian.tryton.org it would probably a nice comfort for some
GNUHealth users who intend to run Debian (or one of its derivatives).

Kind regards

         Andreas.
 
> [0] http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/health-dev/2014-09/msg00053.html
> [1] http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/health-dev/2014-09/msg00057.html
[3] https://lists.debian.org/debian-med/2011/11/msg00029.html
[4] https://lists.debian.org/debian-med/2015/02/msg00044.html

-- 
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