[rkward-devel] R backports on launchpad

[Michael Rutter]

Thomas,

I looked into using a Launchpad PPA this morning, and the following line 
from the help pages (https://help.launchpad.net/Packaging/PPA/Uploading) 
may be an issue for concern:

Note: We will not accept uploads of packages that are unmodified from 
their original source in Ubuntu or Debian, only packages that include 
your own changes.

Vincent and I do not modify the code from the Debain source packages, 
just adjust the build rules to fit the current version of Ubuntu. 
Therefore, a PPA of our R builds would appear to violate the above rule.

There has been some discussion about adding R to main (see 
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/r-base/+bug/497158).  If more 
packages need R then this may move forward quicker.  Another alternative 
would be request and/or build R packages via the Ubuntu backports system 
(https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UbuntuBackports).

Michael

On 04/27/2010 11:15 AM, Thomas Friedrichsmeier wrote:
> Hello Vincent,
>
> Vincent Goulet schrieb:
>> Please also consider that I build these R packages solely as a service
>> to the community. I no longer use Ubuntu myself on any of my computers
>> (Macs for desktop, Debian stable for servers)! I took quite some time
>> to write build scripts to automate most of the process and I'm getting
>> ever more resistant to change as time goes by. You may find my scripts
>> useful, though; see https://vgoulet.act.ulaval.ca/svn/R/cran-ubuntu/.
>
> I can absolutely see your point, and I won't insist, but before I give
> up, I will try to convince you once more.
>
> First, what we are looking for in RKWard, is building packages much more
> often than just for every stable release, ideally even daily. This is
> not only to make it easier for testers to follow the development, but
> also to discover build problems early on, instead of a few days before
> the targetted release date.
>
> I really, really appreciate your work of providing backports of rkward.
> But now we want more, and I assume that's more than you'd be willing to
> provide for us. This is not beyond the scope of launchpad though, and
> basically, all we need to do is to feed it our sources in regular
> intervals. However, if we also want to use launchpad to compile against
> R backports (and we do want that), then these need to be hosted
> somewhere on launchpad.
>
> The primary audience for your R-backports on launchpad would not be
> end-users. Rather this would allow developers to use launchpad PPAs for
> compiling their software against your backports - without maintaining
> installations of several different releases of Ubuntu on two different
> architectures.
>
> Now, if needs be, we could just fetch your source-packages from CRAN,
> and feed them into a launchpad PPA, ourselves. However, keeping that in
> sync would mean a bunch of work that we would simply like to avoid.
>
> Using a launchpad PPA would not only make *our* life a bit easier, but
> possibly it could also save *you* some work in the future. For instance,
> it might lower the barriers for somebody else to take over
> responsibility for the backports one day. In this context, note that
> launchpad also allows to set up a PPA for teams of people, not just
> individuals.
>
> Well, I hope this is enough to change your mind, but if it's not, I can
> totally understand that as well.
>
> Regards
> Thomas

-- 
Dr. Michael A. Rutter
School of Science
Penn State Erie, The Behrend College
Station Road
Erie, PA 16563
http://math.bd.psu.edu/faculty/rutter