Tracking package submissions with Debbugs

[Ludovic Courtès]

Hi Alex!

Alex Vong <address@hidden> skribis:

> While it may not be as user-friendly as web-based bug tracker these
> days, I think the Debian bug tracking system is still better than our
> current approach. In Debian, everything is a package. It is like a
> language primitive in the bug tracker system.
>
>
> There is an "intended to package" (ITP) package. When you want to
> package something, you simply file a bug against the ITP package. This
> has the advantage that, the relevant information stays within the bug
> report. So everyone can see the whole process, starting from someone
> intending to package, to a fully reviewed package, all in a single bug
> report. It is like having "lexical scoping".

And we all like lexical scoping.  :-)

> And the most important argument comes: We already have it now[0]! So,
> this could be a working intermediate solution. Currently, we are not
> using debbugs to its full potential.
>
>
> My suggestion will be to create a new package called "guix-package", and
> all people hoping to introduce a new package to guix should file a bug
> report to <address@hidden>. If you are new to this type of bug
> tracking system, no problem! There is (some) documentation on it[1][2]
> and here is my own little example[3].

I think this is a good idea, at least an improvement over the status
quo.

I suppose it wouldn’t handle patch series very well though, would it?
Or people would have to send the “cover letter” of the series first, and
then send the rest to address@hidden once a number has been
assigned?

What’s unclear to me is how convenient Debbugs is for non-Emacs users:
Emacs has M-x debbugs-gnu, which is a significant UI improvement, but
how do non-Emacs users deal with Debbugs?

Thanks,
Ludo’.