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Ubuntu: Introducing Debcrafters

discourse.ubuntu.com

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Re: Ubuntu: Introducing Debcrafters

#11

Post by somanyphotons »

loloquwowndueo wrote: post #8
bArray wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish they would stop with snap, snaps have been nothing but a pain. Ubuntu keep pushing half-baked ideas into the wild - who asked for a system that would randomly kill apps without warning? It's like the Rust SSH thing, they are going to make it the default whether you like it or not, even though they know it is not 1:1 and probably never will be. I'm currently having an issue with Firefox where it will not stop c…

Google “remove snaps Ubuntu 24.04” (or whichever version you’re on). I did so, nuked all snaps and replaced Firefox with an upstream Deb repository. Everything’s working fine so far.

May as well run Debian at that point

Re: Ubuntu: Introducing Debcrafters

#12

Post by loloquwowndueo »

somanyphotons wrote: post #11
loloquwowndueo wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google “remove snaps Ubuntu 24.04” (or whichever version you’re on). I did so, nuked all snaps and replaced Firefox with an upstream Deb repository. Everything’s working fine so far.

May as well run Debian at that point

I’ve found that Ubuntu comes with more things set up out of the box than Debian, so it gets me up and running faster. Or could look into Mint. Sure, to each their own - as long as it has no snaps!

Re: Ubuntu: Introducing Debcrafters

#13

Post by TacticalCoder »

neilv wrote: post #9

> In the coming weeks our Starcraft team (responsible for Snapcraft 2, Rockcraft 5, Charmcraft 1) will begin prototyping debcraft, which will (in time) become the de facto method for creating, testing and uploading packages to the Ubuntu archive. Hopefully this won't in any way adversely affect development and maintenance of packages for Debian. Nobody wants embrace-extend-extinguish, nor poaching of volunteers, nor…

[dead]

Re: Ubuntu: Introducing Debcrafters

#14

Post by thesuperbigfrog »

Maybe this is more of a Debian question since a lot of Ubuntu packages come from Debian, but what process is used to deprecate unmaintained packages?

If a package is abandoned (i.e. there is no current maintainer), how is it determined if a package should be updated and maintained by Debcrafters or someone else?

Is there any kind of download metrics to know if a package is used?

How would package maintenance be prioritized?

Re: Ubuntu: Introducing Debcrafters

#16

Post by jnsgruk »

loloquwowndueo wrote: post #5
jnsgruk wrote: post #2

Earlier this year, Canonical’s Ubuntu Engineering organisation gained a new team, seeded with some of our most prolific contributors to Ubuntu. Debcrafters is a new team dedicated to the maintenance of the Ubuntu Archive. The team’s primary goal is to maintain the health of the Ubuntu Archive, but its unique construction aims to attract a broad range of Linux distribution expertise; contributors to distributions like…

> others are encouraged to join the team What are the requirements for joining? Will I be asked about my high-school grades? Pass a psychometric test? Thanks.

Yes, candidates for the team will still be expected to go through our usual hiring process.

Re: Ubuntu: Introducing Debcrafters

#17

Post by jnsgruk »

notpushkin wrote: post #15

> The first prototype of debcraft will focus on unifying the current workflow adopted by most Ubuntu Developers at Canonical. Is it the same debcraft as the Debian one? https://salsa.debian.org/debian/debcraft

No, that's an unfortunate naming collision.

Canonical’s debcraft will be a close relation of snapcraft, rockcraft and charmcraft, built using the craft-application and associated libraries.

Re: Ubuntu: Introducing Debcrafters

#18

Post by jnsgruk »

neilv wrote: post #9

> In the coming weeks our Starcraft team (responsible for Snapcraft 2, Rockcraft 5, Charmcraft 1) will begin prototyping debcraft, which will (in time) become the de facto method for creating, testing and uploading packages to the Ubuntu archive. Hopefully this won't in any way adversely affect development and maintenance of packages for Debian. Nobody wants embrace-extend-extinguish, nor poaching of volunteers, nor…

Indeed, we'll need to be very careful to ensure that a new tool doesn't preclude our contribution to Debian, nor complicate our ability to work as a functioning downstream.

Early versions of debcraft will focus on compatibility with the existing format, and aim to help unify workflow across our Ubuntu Developer community.

Re: Ubuntu: Introducing Debcrafters

#20

Post by jnsgruk »

rbanffy wrote: post #3
jnsgruk wrote: post #2

Earlier this year, Canonical’s Ubuntu Engineering organisation gained a new team, seeded with some of our most prolific contributors to Ubuntu. Debcrafters is a new team dedicated to the maintenance of the Ubuntu Archive. The team’s primary goal is to maintain the health of the Ubuntu Archive, but its unique construction aims to attract a broad range of Linux distribution expertise; contributors to distributions like…

Does that mean they are reducing work on snaps?

No, this is an orthogonal effort.

We have two channels for distributing software in Ubuntu: the archive and the snap store. Each are suited to different scenarios.

Irrespective of any view on Snap as a packaging format, the workflow and developer experience is, in my opinion, much simpler to work with. The barrier to contribution is much lower.

The work on debcraft is to try and bring some of the lessons we've learned there to those developers working with debs - while also introducing new primitives that will allow for extended integration testing of the distribution using some of our existing (well tested) machinery.

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