Details of the debconf review process

This process is one of the review processes in the Smith Review Project of the the Debian English localisation mailing-list contributors.

A complete toolkit featuring scripts and mail templates is available.

Step 1: notify the package maintainer

<DAY00> to <DAY06>

One of the members of the rewrite team ("the reviewer") notifies the package maintainer and other rewrite team members of the intent to work on the package's templates.

This is intended to avoid collisions with rewrite or any other work that could have been planned by the maintainer.

The reviewer sends a message with "[ITR] templates://<package>/{file1,...,fileN}" (ITR=Intent To Review) to both the maintainer and the debian-l10n-english mailing list.

A 7 days delay is given to the package maintainer to ACK for this action or deny it.

The reviewer grabs the package's source tree and subscribes him/herself to the PTS for that package.

The package maintainer is <package>@packages.debian.org

Step 2: Call for debconf templates review

<DAY07>

The reviewer sends the package's templates file to debian-l10n-english for review with "[RFR] templates://<package>/{file1,...,fileN}" as Subject.

Step 3: Review

<DAY07> to <DAY16>

The debian-l10n-english contributors review the templates file and propose changes by sending unified diffs in debian-l10n-english as followups to the RFR message.

After "enough" time, the reviewer summarizes the changes with a "Last Call for Comments" mail 1 or 2 days before the end of the review process. In case it becomes obvious that everything is correct, this delay can be shortened. The mail subject should be "[LCFC] templates://<package>/{file1,...,fileN}"

This mail will we CC'ed to the package maintainer to give her/him a chance to react to the proposed changes.

Step 4: Send the review to the BTS

<DAY16>

The reviewer sends this rewritten templates file as a bug report against <package> with: Severity: wishlist Tags: patch Subject: <package> Debconf templates rewrite/proofreading

This bug's number will be <bugnumber> in the following.

This bug will be usertagged "debconf-rewrite" by the debian-i18n@lists.debian.org user.

The reviewer sends a mail to debian-l10n-english with "[BTS] templates://<package>/{file1,...,fileN} #<bugnumber>" as Subject.

The package maintainer is left with 3 days to react to the new proposed templates and raise objections to the new wording.

Step 5: Call for translation updates

<DAY19>

The reviewer includes the new templates file(s) to his/her copy of the package sources, runs debconf-updatepo and sends calls for updates with podebconf-report-po

Step 6: Translation updates

<DAY19> to <DAY31>

Translation teams work on the translation updates of new translations by using their respective translation processes.

Updates are sent to <bugnumber>@bugs.debian.org with: Subject: <package>: [INTL:xx] Debconf translation update

(replace "Debconf translation update" by "New debconf translation" for new translations)

The reviewer integrates these updates to his/her copy after checking the encoding and "msgfmt -o /dev/null -c <pofile>"

Step 7: Send the patch to the package maintainer

<DAY32>

The reviewer builds a patch against the previous version of <package> by building a tarball with: - debian/changelog - debian/*templates (the real names depends on the real templates file) - debian/po/*.po

This patch is sent to <bugnumber>@bugs.debian.org.

About delays and timing

Of course, all these delays, except the call for translations, can be shortened if the situation allows for this.