Dear Jonathan, I'm continuing with your next set of questions for the topic VCS. You can find my answer about the Community team question here[1].
> 2. VCS > > Salsa has been stable for a number of years now, and git is clearly a good > choice of default VCS (even though not perfect or preferred for all). > > How do you feel about VCS requirements in Debian? Should it be required that > Debian packages are maintained in Salsa? It should be required that Debian packages are maintained in VCS (which these days is synonymous with Git) and hosted on a unified development platform. Currently, that platform is Salsa (formerly we had Alioth with the restrictions that made us move away), and if someone develops an alternative that addresses the concerns raised about our GitLab instance, I'd be open to considering it. But for now, our goal should be to host all packages on Salsa since this has proven to be fine in production. If you ask whether this can realistically be accomplished within the next DPL term, my answer is a clear no. I am well aware of the discussions and the objections raised against this plan. However, I believe the benefits far outweigh the drawbacks. These include easier collaboration, especially for newcomers, better tooling for large-scale package changes, greater consistency across Debian packaging, and CI testing. For now, I will focus on migrating packages that remain outside Salsa _for_ _no_ _good_ _reason_-for instance, cases where the maintainer is inactive, and nobody truly cares. Last year I used some UDD query[2] udd=> SELECT DISTINCT count(*) FROM sources WHERE release = 'sid' and vcs_url not like '%salsa%' ; 2368 At that time, I stated that I would like to reduce the latter number below 2000. As of today, it stands at 1653. However, it was later discussed [3] that the old query was incorrect. I have proposed a new query [4] that should accurately identify all affected packages: udd=> SELECT COUNT(DISTINCT source) FROM sources WHERE release = 'sid' AND (vcs_url IS NULL OR vcs_url like '%alioth.debian.org%' OR vcs_url like '%git.debian.org%' OR vcs_url like '%svn.debian.org%' OR vcs_url like '%anonscm.debian.org%') ; count ------- 2509 At the time of writing this query to the list 2025-01-08 this number was 2930. So something happened in the last 2.5 months and I intend to continue with this. I want to repeat what I stated very clearly last year: If you do not believe that all Debian packages should be maintained on a common Git-based platform, then you should not vote for me. I will not achieve this transition within a single year, but I am committed to paving the way toward it. > How do you feel about dgit As long as dgit is seen as just another interface (like gbp), I'm perfectly fine with it. Ultimately, the choice depends on your workflow. While I personally use gbp, I've seen dgit in action with Salsa, and if it fits the needs of others, that's great. > and tag2upload? >From my perspective, tag2upload offers a modern alternative to the over-30-year-old method we currently use to upload packages. While my current workflow doesn't present any issues that tag2upload might address-and thus I haven't felt a need to use it myself-I see it as a positive step towards modernization. I consider tag2upload part of Debian's ongoing efforts to enhance our processes, and I'm interested to see where it takes us. Finally, it may serve as a stepping stone on the path I intend to pave towards unified Git-based workflows across Debian. > Do you have any ideas about VCS use in Debian that you would promote as DPL? I basically answered this question above, but to reiterate: My strategy as DPL is to join forces with other DDs to move packages to Salsa that have been somehow "forgotten." Many packages that do not have their Vcs fields set to Salsa are even hosted there, but they have not been uploaded by the team maintaining them with updated Vcs fields. I believe this is an easily solvable problem within one additional year. During the Bug of the Day effort, I encountered many cases where not being maintained on Salsa was a minor issue compared to other QA problems. In the responses I received from the maintainers of these packages, the vast majority were positive. > A while back someone told me that they want to NMU one of my packages. It > was maintained in /debian on salsa, so I reminded them that this is > basically collab-maint these days and they did the right thing and just did > a team upload instead. Julian mentioned common package maintenance in how > it's done in Ubuntu. What do you think about the /debian team and would you > want to promote the use of that as DPL? I think the /debian team is a great idea, and I actively use it. As DPL, I fully promote its use. Thank you for pointing this out. Kind regards Andreas. [1] https://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/2025/03/msg00047.html [2] https://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/2024/03/msg00057.html [3] https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2025/01/msg00078.html [4] https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2025/01/msg00128.html -- https://fam-tille.de
