Hi Steve, Your reply brings up a larger discussion which involves not only the technical board, but also the community council since there are community implications that need to be addressed as the wiki entry you referred to is not at all community friendly.
For those just joining the conversation, Ubuntu Cinnamon Remix (ubuntucinnamon.org), with Joshua Peisach as leader, has been working on meeting the requirements to become an official flavor for the past 3 years. Joshua has been trying, to the best of his ability, to follow the requirements posted at <https://wiki.ubuntu.com/RecognizedFlavors>. I have stepped-up to assist him with my MOTU hat on, but Joshua has run into numerous roadblocks over the years, and I am seeing his frustrations as well. It seems as though when he meets a requirement, a new requirement appears, so that while the goalposts aren't actually moving in the eyes of those on the technical board, to him it appears like they are. Before I proceed any further, I need to note that I have brought this to the attention of the Community Council, and we agree that this issue does need to be addressed. Therefore, I write this now as a representative of the Community Council, with some replies in-line addressing the packaging concerns. On Sun, 2022-07-24 at 22:54 -0700, Steve Langasek wrote: > Hi Erich, > > On Sat, Jul 23, 2022 at 07:46:30AM -0700, Erich Eickmeyer wrote: > > Hi all! > > > As many of you know, Ubuntu Cinnamon Remix[1] has been around for > > around 3 years, consistently following the Ubuntu release cycle. I > > have > > volunteered my time to help Joshua Peisach (ItzSwirlz) to bring his > > required packages into the Ubuntu repositories which, at this > > point, > > really only amount to around three source packages: > > > ubuntucinnamon-environment: Mostly the GTK and icon theme > > > ubuntucinnamon-artwork: Plymouth theme, lightdm theme > > > ubuntucinnamon-wallpaper: Wallpapers > > > There is also an ubuntucinnamon-meta package which Joshua has been > > creating manually, but I suspect this should be uploaded later > > after a > > germinate seed has been created. > > On Sat, Jul 23, 2022 at 09:26:16AM -0700, Erich Eickmeyer wrote: > > On Sat, 2022-07-23 at 07:46 -0700, Erich Eickmeyer wrote: > > > There is also an ubuntucinnamon-meta package which Joshua has > > > been > > > creating manually, but I suspect this should be uploaded later > > > after > > > a > > > germinate seed has been created. > > > I stand corrected, he's using germinate to create the meta. It'll > > be > > easy to transition to a proper seed once the flavor is official. > > This needs to happen *before* the flavor is recognized as official. > If there is a step-by-step process that is undocumented, then this brings up a point that I'll address below. > - There is an ubuntucinnamon-meta package, but it's not been in the > archive > until 16 hours ago. So, never been in any Ubuntu release; and > currently > stuck in -proposed as: > > * ubuntucinnamon-meta (- to 22.07) > Migration status for ubuntucinnamon-meta (- to 22.07): BLOCKED: > Rejected/violates migration policy/introduces a regression > Issues preventing migration: > ubuntucinnamon-desktop/amd64 has unsatisfiable dependency > ubuntucinnamon-desktop/ppc64el has unsatisfiable dependency > ubuntucinnamon-desktop/s390x has unsatisfiable dependency We can get this sorted, and I believe Joshua is already working on it. > > - The source package points to github for its seed. This needs to be > hosted > on Launchpad, and owned by a team of which ~ubuntu-core-dev is a > member. There is no documentation anywhere that I know of in this context for the requirement of the involvement of a member of the ~ubuntu-core-dev team, so now I'm emploring the technical board to get this sorted, preferably on some kind of documentation, but not necessarily on <https://wiki.ubuntu.com/RecognizedFlavors> as I'm not happy with that wiki entry from a community standpoint. More on this later in this email. > - update.cfg in the source package also has a weird mix of impish and > jammy > - and it needs to be kinetic... > Joshua has been alerted to this, and I believe he is already working on this. > > Anyhow, I'm helping him out with my MOTU hat on to get these > > packages > > sponsored and uploaded so that he can *finally* apply for official > > seed > > status. So far, I've been impressed as his packaging has been top- > > notch > > with just a few lintian issues that I've been helping him clean-up. > > > Overall, Ubuntu Cinnamon is of a high-quality that I'd expect of an > > official Ubuntu flavor, and I will be honored to help usher it in > > to > > becoming one. > > > With that, expect a few non-Ubuntu Studio or Kubuntu-related > > uploads > > coming from me for Archive Admin review as sponsored for this > > project. > > > If any of you have any thoughts on this, let me know, and either > > myself > > or Joshua will be happy to answer any questions. > > Please also double-check the list on > <https://wiki.ubuntu.com/RecognizedFlavors>. Having centralized > daily > builds is a precondition of being a recognized release flavor, and to > turn > those on requires Technical Board approval (not Release Team). This > will > also need to be implemented in livecd-rootfs, so patches welcome. > Thanks for the help, Steve. However, the list in that wiki entry reads like a checklist for the technical board to follow when considering a flavor to become officially recognized. That's great and all, but it is very difficult for a flavor that is attempting to become official, especially after 3 years of trying, to follow as a guide. Knowing what needs to happen before something else can happen is not covered in that wiki page. Therefore, there needs to be a detailed step-by-step easy-to-read process as I addressed above, and not an all- inclusive "did they do the right things" checklist. While I understand the need to keep the bar high here since we don't want to sacrifice quality, I do need to remind everyone that Ubuntu is about putting the community first, and that if we're not helping to usher-in potential new flavors that *want* to be new flavors, then we're doing a disservice to our community. My ask here isn't to lower the requirements, but my ask here is to help guide people through the requirements so people can actually understand what they need to do, and when, and in what order. I'd be happy to assist with this process. Others in the Community Council have volunteered to help as well so that potential applicants, such as Joshua, don't have to go through what he's currently going through. Therefore, on behalf of the Community Council, I charge the technical board to come up with such a document, posted in an easy-to-find location, so that unofficial flavors (two currently on my radar include Ubuntu Cinnamon and Ubuntu Unity) can have a streamlined shot at becoming official flavors if they so desire. Remember, this is about putting the community first, and a growing community is a healthy community, which means allowing and helping new flavors rather than discouraging them. ---- Erich Eickmeyer Member, Ubuntu Community Council Project Leader, Ubuntu Studio Ubuntu MOTU
signature.asc
Description: This is a digitally signed message part
-- technical-board mailing list technical-board@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/technical-board
