dc8 - 1.1

DebConf8
Super Cow Powers Included

Speakers
Gregor Herrmann
Schedule
Day DebConf day 5 (2008-08-14)
Room Salon del mar
Start time 12:00
Duration 01:00
Info
ID 238
Event type bof
Track DebConf
Language en

Best practises in team-maintaining packages

What works? What doesn't? What can we learn from each other?

Team maintenance for (groups of) packages is en vogue; dozens or perhaps hundreds of packaging teams care for a subset of the Debian archive in a collaborative style.

This BOF offers the opportunity for members of different packaging teams to exchange their experiences, share their success and problem stories, and in general learn from each other.

a) Situation

During the last few years team-maintaining groups of packages has become more and more widespread in Debian; the exact number of packaging teams is unknown, estimates vary between 42 and 893 -- reality is probably somewhere in between. [0]

Although the challenges for all teams are similar, there is a lack of communication between those groups which leads to a situation where many are "reinventing the wheel".

b) Objectives

  • bring members of different packaging teams together
  • get an overview of different work flows, tools, and challenges
  • compile generally useful 'models of good practise'
  • define possible areas for cooperation / tasks of mutual interest

c) Methods

Should the proposal for the BOF be accepted, a short questionnaire covering "typical questions" for packaging teams will be prepared before Summer that allows interested participants from packaging teams to prepare a short overview of their team's situation and work flow.

This will allow the BOF to begin with short and structured presentations dealing with common aspects of team packaging. From these presentations common points of interest will be collected to form the "agenda" for the next part of the BOF.

Ideally the session will conclude with a summary of "best practises," ideas for improving individual groups' work flows and ideas for improved cooperation between teams. -- Findings will be made public in the hope that they will be helpful to others.

[0] http://wiki.debian.org/Teams lists 42 "Packaging teams"; http://krum.ethz.ch/ddc/teams-of-2007.txt has 218 entries; http://alioth.debian.org/ talks about 789 "hosted projects", looking in /home/groups on alioth shows 893 directories in general and 387 pkg-*
directories.