UDD tools when Vcs-Bzr points to Launchpad

I'd like us to settle out on this. I thought packagers were supposed to migrate to the official locations. So "Vcs-bzr" *should* have been set to lp:ubuntu/compizconfig-python and not lp:~compiz/compizconfig-python/ubuntu.

I won't say that I'm 100% sure about policy, though.

I could understand us saying:

  Official policy is for ubuntu to use "lp:ubuntu/foo"
  if a package has Vcs-Bzr that is not "lp:ubuntu/foo" warn, and use whatever is in the Vcs-Bzr line.

I worry that the warning is going to the wrong person, though.

Jelmer mentions that often Vcs-Bzr is actually pointing at the debian packaging branch, because Ubuntu doesn't want to override those things. He also mentions that Gina does some sort of translation moving a tag into an X-Field, and forcing the ubuntu official value into the Field.

On Fri, Jan 21, 2011 at 08:42:10PM -0000, John A Meinel wrote:
> I'd like us to settle out on this. I thought packagers were supposed to
> migrate to the official locations. So "Vcs-bzr" *should* have been set
> to lp:ubuntu/compizconfig-python and not lp:~compiz/compizconfig-
> python/ubuntu.

We'd like to get there eventually, but many teams, especially the
desktop team but possibly others, aren't there yet. Many of the
packages that are in the project namespace rather than the distribution
namespace are using debian/-only branches or are different from the
Ubuntu branch layout in some other way (e.g. they don't keep all files
in the source package in revision control), so it isn't trivial for
everyone to migrate immediately.

In the meantime, people who make drive-by changes to the
lp:ubuntu/PACKAGE branches for a package that is actually maintained
somewhere else cause practical problems, because somebody has to go and
manually sync their changes across to the branch they're actually using
(and probably have far more informative history in).

As I see it, this bug is essentially a transitional measure to avoid
causing too much chaos until we've all switched over to
lp:ubuntu/PACKAGE branches, not something for permanent use.

> Jelmer mentions that often Vcs-Bzr is actually pointing at the debian
> packaging branch, because Ubuntu doesn't want to override those things.

We usually override them when we diverge from Debian in some way. In
cases where the source package is synced verbatim from Debian, we leave
it at whatever the Debian source package says.

> He also mentions that Gina does some sort of translation moving a tag
> into an X-Field, and forcing the ubuntu official value into the Field.

I've never heard of that translation being done automatically for Vcs-*
fields. I think he may be thinking of the Maintainer field, which is
overridden by Soyuz.

On Fri, Jan 21, 2011 at 09:02:11PM -0000, Colin Watson wrote:
> On Fri, Jan 21, 2011 at 08:42:10PM -0000, John A Meinel wrote:
> > He also mentions that Gina does some sort of translation moving a tag
> > into an X-Field, and forcing the ubuntu official value into the Field.
> I've never heard of that translation being done automatically for Vcs-*
> fields. I think he may be thinking of the Maintainer field, which is
> overridden by Soyuz.
Yeah, I was specifically referring to the Maintainer field. I think it
would make sense to do something similar for the Vcs-* if/when ubuntu
developers start using the "official" locations.

That way a lot of other Debian tools that look at Vcs-* also
automatically work.

Cheers,

Jelmer