Summary of the 2008-04-08 Packaging Committee meeting

[Toshio Kuratomi]

Jason Corley wrote:
>> Toshio Kuratomi wrote:
>> Which I think illustrates the point that JPackage isn't the upstream for the tomcat5 package, yes?
> 
>> Tom "spot" Callaway wrote:
>> It seems far more appropriate to say that the Fedora package is derived from JPackage.
> 
> Perhaps you two can explain to me the difference between what you
> consider package derivation vs. upstream in the context of
> packaging... In my mind if you base your package off of the packaging
> work of others, those others are (or in this instance should be)
> upstream for the package.  Again the Fedora/RHEL analogy seems to fit.
>  It feels like splitting semantic hairs to me but you may have a real
> distinction which I'd like to hear.  If there is debate there that is
> likely the part I'm not understanding, but then I'm just a pig
> wallowing in mud so what do I know.

If we were talking about source code it would be the difference between 
having an upstream and having a fork.  Even though xorg and XFree86 
started with the same code base, one is not the upstream for the other.

So in this context, derivation would be if I took a package from 
JPackage, Mandriva, etc, had it reviewed for Fedora and then proceeded 
to maintain the package in Fedora, syncing against new upstream releases 
of the source, fixing bugs reported in the Fedora bugzilla, and 
generally, considering the package I'm maintaining in Fedora to be 
independent of the package the original work was based on.

Upstream in this context would be when I take a package from an upstream 
repository and submit it for Fedora review.  Changes implemented in the 
review would be pushed back into the upstream package unless they were 
truly Fedora-only changes.  Once imported and built the normal flow of 
events for the package would be to wait for changes from the new 
upstream package release (or aid in making new upstream package 
releases) and then syncing those to the Fedora package.  As packaging 
bugs were filed with Fedora, the changes could be made locally and 
pushed to the upstream repository's packages or made in the upstream's 
packages and then backported to the Fedora package until the next 
upstream release.

So using the term upstream says there's an ongoing relationship between 
the packages where the Fedora package tracks the changes made in the 
upstream package.

The grey area is when a Fedora package tracks changes in another 
repository but the packager still thinks of it as an independent work. 
This happens more often when a bug occurs in source code and the 
packager looks for patches in other distros/repos that can fix the 
problem.  It could happen in the context we care about here but I don't 
think it will happen as often.  A package maintainer is used to looking 
for help with source code upstream but doing all the work of packaging 
themselves -- so a packager who is deriving from JPackage would be more 
likely to rely on their own resources or by asking fedora-devel list for 
advice while a packager that is using JPackage as an upstream would look 
to JPackage's cvs for ideas.

-Toshio