Debusine repositories now in beta

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Following on from the talk I gave at DebConf [1], we're happy to=20
announce that Debusine can now be used to maintain APT-compatible add-on=20
package repositories for Debian (i.e. PPAs for Debian!).  This facility=20
is available in public beta to Debian developers and maintainers.

Why?
----

As Debian developers we typically put most of our efforts towards=20
maintaining the main Debian archive.  However, it's often useful to have=20
other places to work, for various reasons:

* When working on a set of packages, one might need to check that=20
   changes to several of them all work properly together on a real=20
   system.
* When fixing a bug, one might need to ask affected users to test the=20
   fix before uploading it to Debian.
* Some projects are difficult to package in a way that meets Debian=20
   policy, or are too niche to include in Debian, but it's still useful=20
   to distribute them in a packaged form.
* For some packages, it's useful to provide multiple upstream versions=20
   for multiple Debian releases, even though Debian itself would normally=
=20
   want to keep that to a minimum.

The Ubuntu ecosystem has had PPAs for a long time to meet these sorts of=20
needs, but people working directly on Debian have had to make do with=20
putting things together themselves using something like reprepro or=20
aptly.  Discussions about this have been happening for long enough that=20
people started referring to PPAs for Debian as "bikesheds", and users=20
often find themselves trying to use Ubuntu PPAs on Debian systems and=20
hoping that dependencies will be compatible enough for things to more or=20
less work.  This clearly isn't ideal, and solving it is one of=20
Freexian's objectives for Debusine.

When publishing packages to Debusine repositories, you can take=20
advantage of all Debusine's existing facilities, including a battery of=20
QA tests and regression tracking (coming soon).  Repositories are signed=20
using per-repository keys held in Debusine's signing service, and=20
uploads to repositories are built against the current contents of that=20
repository as well as the corresponding base Debian release.  All=20
repositories include automatic built-in snapshot capabilities.

Who can use this service?
-------------------------

We've set up https://debusine.debian.net/ to allow using repositories. =20
All Debian Developers and Debian Maintainers can log in there and=20
publish packages to it.  The resulting repositories are public by=20
default.

debusine.debian.net only allows packages with licences that allow=20
distribution by Debian, and it is intended primarily for work that could=20
reasonably end up in Debian; Freexian reserves the right to remove=20
repositories from it.

How can I use it?
-----------------

If you are a Debian contributor, we'd be very excited to have you try=20
this out, especially if you give us feedback [2].  We've published=20
instructions for developers on using this:

   https://wiki.debian.org/DebusineDebianNet#Repositories

Since this is a beta service, you can expect things to change, but we'll=20
maintain compatibility where we can.

[1] Video: https://meetings-archive.debian.net/pub/debian-meetings/2025/Deb=
Conf25/debconf25-398-using-debusine-to-pre-test-your-unstable-uploads.av1.w=
ebm
     Slides: https://salsa.debian.org/debconf-team/public/share/debconf25/-=
/tree/main/slides/29-using-debusine-to-pre-test-your-unstable-uploads
[2] https://wiki.debian.org/DebusineDebianNet#Where_to_get_help.3F

Thanks,

--=20
Colin Watson (he/him)                              [[email protected]]

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