Re: Rules requiring source+binary uploads to debian-backports?

Hi Ted,

Am 10. Dezember 2024 05:15:25 MEZ schrieb Theodore Ts'o <[email protected]>:
>Potentally stupid question.  I want to upload the latest version of
>efsprogs from testing to debian-backports.  In that version, there is
>a "new" transitional package, fuseext2.  It's not "new" in that
>fuseext2 use to be built from a difference source package,
>src:fuse-umfuse-ext2 which has been abandoned by its upstream, so
>we've replaced fusext2 with a shell script which emlates its CLI in
>terms of e2fsprogs fuse2fs.
>
>However, it is "new" in that
>
>(a) it's new to the e2fsprogs source package.
>
>(b) it's new to debian/backports since there has never been a backport
>of src:fuse-umfuse-ext2.
>
>So.... do I need to do a source+binary upload, or will be OK to do a
>source-only upload?  (All of the other binary packages are in
>debian-backports since e2fsprogs has been previously uploaded to
>debian-backports.)

In terms of dak, bookworm-backports is just another suite of packages. The technical mechanics of how it is populated with packages is not really different to sid. So, due to (b) you will need a source+binary upload, which will then go through NEW for manual approval (obviously the policy of what is being accepted by whom is different to sid).

>There are no instructions that I can find on point in
>https://backports.debian.org/Contribute, and the text in
>https://wiki.debian.org/SourceOnlyUpload don't go into enough detail.

If you have a specific improvement in mind, I'd appreciate a merge request for <https://salsa.debian.org/backports-team/backports-website.git>.

>Also, if I have to do a source+binary upload, the comments in
>SourceOnlyUpload entry in the Debian Wiki about the package not being
>eligible to be transitioned from unstable to testing aren't really
>applicable for debian-backports, right?  So do we have any enforcement
>of the desire that source-only packages are considered desirable for
>the Debian archive when it is for debian-backports?

Unfortunately we can only enforce source-only uploads once they are accepted. New binary packages will need a source+binary upload to go through NEW - same as for sid/experimental.

Side note: When processing the NEW queue of backports, I do review the binary uploads because they enable me to do a quick cross check whether the binaries were built in a suitable build environment for stable+backports (i.e. not in testing/unstable) -- and this is surprisingly a (occasional but) recurring reason for rejecting an upload.

Some backport uploaders go the extra mile and (once the source+binary upload got accepted) follow up with a source-only upload as ~bpo12+2, which then causes the uploaded binary packages to be replaced by build generated binary packages. This is at least something every uploader can do to accomplish the same outcome, but I am not fully convinced this is something we shall enforce in the future the same way we already do for testing.

Cheers,
Micha